


See/Be Seen

by K_iddo



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: (i feel like they ping-pong between the three), (not necessarily in that order), Brief Saul Bright/Female V, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It, Idiots in Love, Jealousy, Porn with Feelings, when you have a big heart but you hate talking about your feelings - the Johnny and V story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:54:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 57,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28985175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_iddo/pseuds/K_iddo
Summary: V doesn't understand the Relic. There are only two things about it that she knows for sure:1. It's killing her.2. If she can stop it from killing her, Johnny will probably die.From those two salient facts come two more things that she knows for sure:1. She doesn't want to die.2. She doesn't want Johnny to die, either.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Comments: 59
Kudos: 165





	1. Night Night, Samurai

“Been thinking,” V sits on the table between Vik and his TV so he has no choice but to pay attention to her. He sighs and leans back in his chair; he knows well enough by now that if she’s insisting on having a conversation, they’re going to have a conversation. 

“Alright,” he crosses his tattooed arms expectantly. 

Misty has followed her in, clearly sensing urgent energy when she had breezed through the shop and barely said hello. 

“Well, look, you see this scar don’t you?” She points to her forehead where he had smashed it into her window and the little nick where the glass had pinched her skin, “If he can fuckin’ hit me, Vik, leave a mark, then he’s not just some set of pixels, he’s real, right? He has a body.” 

She slides off the table to her feet, feeling a little manic, like she’s sucked on a Black Lace inhaler. She had been lying in bed all night, rolling it around in her mind. Johnny has been in her head for a month and she still can’t figure out how the shit works but there has to be more to him than just data and code. 

“I’ve been thinking about it, you know? Like, how can he just be an engram if he can touch me and I can feel it, can’t even stop him? There must be something more to it - Arasaka are fucking clever - he’s not just some hologram from the chip on my brain. The - what did you call them, _nannites_? They’re making Johnny feel like a real person to me. That means there’s something about this that we’re not getting, maybe there _is_ a way to get him off the chip so I don’t have to -” 

Die. Why is that still so hard to say?

“And he doesn’t have to either.” She finishes eventually.

“Look, kid, I know what you’re saying here, and you’re right, this is way beyond us. But that could have been anything, him attacking you. You don’t know how much control he has over your mind, your body.”

Johnny glitches into the room to watch the exchange, leaning back against Vik’s desk.

Vik’s looking at her like he feels sorry for her, which she truly hates.

“He feels sorry for you because you look cracked when you pace up and down like that,” Johnny unhelpfully offers. She ignores him. 

“You sayin’ I hit myself?” A shot of anger goes up her neck. 

“I don’t know what happened, kid,” he sighs and gets up from his chair. Vik doesn't like to fight with her, she knows that but she can feel a fight coming on anyway. 

“You gonna help me out with a little demonstration or something here?” V says out loud to Johnny, gesturing to Vik’s desk for him to _do something -_ prove he can interact with the world. 

“Jesus, V, now you’re talking out loud to it? C’mon.” Vik pinches his nose with his thumb and forefinger and she feels hot frustration go through her, embarrassed as she is mad for not being understood. 

Johnny looks at her over his sunglasses sceptically for a moment before rolling his eyes and grabbing Vik’s TV. And he does grab it, his hands don’t go right through it, she even hears the sound of his metal hand touch it. 

“Johnny!” She ignores Vik.

“Fuckin’ trying,” Johnny grabs hold of the screen but it doesn’t move, then he swipes his arms across the table, everything stays in place, his arm goes right through the papers and tools there.

What the fuck? 

“Even if he could interact with stuff, I can’t _see_ him, kid, if no one can see him but you then, he’s not...”

“I get it, you think I’m crazy,” her tone takes on that hard, bitter edge it does when her emotions overwhelm her.  
  
“I never said that, but I think you’re desperate to find a way to fix something that can’t be fixed,” he says, “the sooner you accept this, the easier-”

“Fuck you, Vik,” she regrets it as soon as it’s out of her mouth, guilt twists up her stomach, but she’s already walking out and she’s never been able to turn back around once her boot is over the threshold. 

The guy saved her fucking life and she's talking to him like that. 

Misty follows her out, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder halfway up the stairs. 

“V, I think you need some rest,” she tries, but her airy voice just pisses V off even more, “your head isn't in its right place right now, your chakras-”

“Oh, _you_ think I’m fuckin’ crazy too? Girl who thinks a deck of cards can tell her the future?” It’s nasty and V can see she’s hurt her. Weird mix of satisfaction and guilt, every time. Misty’s face blanches and she looks down at the ground. 

Jesus, her stomach clenches.

“You need to go home and calm the fuck down. Have a drink or something!” Vik calls from the bottom of the stairs.

“Great, yeah!” she calls back and takes the steps two at a time, “Thanks for nothin’!” 

Johnny doesn’t show back up until she’s in the car and stuck in traffic in the middle of the city. 

“Thanks for the help,” she says immediately when he appears in the passenger seat.  
  
“Hey, I tried,” he lights up a cigarette that he’s already told her does nothing for him. Something to do with his hands, she guesses. Makes him feel more real to himself. 

“Sure,” she rolls her eyes, still feeling like pure, bitter poison. Vik didn’t get what she was saying, and maybe what she was saying didn’t mean anything anyway. She isn't a ripper, isn't a scientist, she just knows that when Johnny had put his hand in her hair and slammed her head into that window she had _felt_ it and there had been nothing she could do to stop it.

That had to mean _something_. 

“Oh, fuck you - you act like I’m having the time of my life here, stuck in your fuckin’ head. You know what it’s like when I phase out of this form and back into your brain? Lookin’ out of eyeballs that ain’t mine and touching shit with hands I can’t feel? Seriously, fuck you for acting like I wouldn’t wanna fix that.”  
  
She goes quiet. God, she is just firing into the crowd today. He’s right and she should apologise, but-

“Apology accepted,” he says.

“Oh, fuck off,” her frustration boils over and she hammers her hand down on the horn as if the cars in front can go anywhere, “if the ‘sorry’ didn’t leave my mouth then it didn’t happen.”  
  
“But you thought it.”

“Think a lot of things,” her grip is hard on the steering wheel. She hates this fucking city. 

“I’m well aware,” he says, “mind’s a fucking labyrinth of half-formed bullshit.”

She doesn’t tell him to fuck off but she thinks it, and they’ve just established that it counts. 

V drives out of the city, glad when the buildings get smaller and smaller behind her and the dense traffic turns to miles of open road. Her tires will suffer for being taken on the sand, but she was too eager to leave to bother getting her bike. 

“You always drive to the desert when you’re really mad, don’t you? Getting back to your nomad roots? Wondering why you ever ran off in the first place?” Johnny puts his feet up on the dashboard when he reappears. 

“Been wondering that since about the time I ended up with an ageing, annoying-as-fuck rockstar rattling around in my noggin, actually,” she pulls down a dirt path until they’re in a patch of quiet desert surrounded by hills. 

She has calmed down a little, but she can still feel that residual thrumming in the blood she always gets after an argument. Later, she’ll text them both that she’s sorry for being a cunt, but for now, she has other things on her mind. 

V gets out of the car, “C’mon, and don’t phase out, okay? Stay like this,” 

“Why are we out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere?” He asks with impatience as he climbs out too. 

“So I don’t look fucking crazy talking to myself,” she says, “and I don’t like just talking to you in my head when you’re standing right there, it’s weird.” 

V lets out a breath and stands across from him, trying to figure out how they can test the parameters of whatever he is. 

“Understand the impulse to get our heads around this but I can’t see what the point is. Your buddy back there was right, if only you can see me and feel me what the fuck’s it matter?”

“If I’m going through all this trouble trying to find someone to help me with this who actually knows about the engram, I’d like to be able to tell them everything I can,” she says, feeling impatient too, “much as we’d like to pretend the other person doesn’t exist, it’s a fucking stupid tactic.”

Johnny looks at her for a moment, but his shoulders relax as he clearly accepts her experiment. 

“Alright, choke me,” she claps her hands together like they’re about to spar. 

His eyebrow quirks and he pushes his sunglasses down his nose to look at her unobstructed.

“Of all the times I pictured you saying that it was never-”

“Shut up, Johnny. I just wanna see, hypothetically, if you could kill me like this."

“And if I can you want me to bury your body out here or drive it back to Vik?” He asks like she’s stupid.

“Just wanna see if you can actually constrict my air - if you can do that, you hypothetically _could_ kill me, right? Just stop when I tap your arm or go purple or something.”

“Please, I know how to choke a girl,” he waves her off, throws away the cigarette he’d been uselessly smoking and approaches her. 

As she expected, he can constrict her breathing; it’s very weird to just stand there and feel his real and his metal hands around her neck and look at his face while he does it. He’s frowning, looking at his thumbs on his throat instead of her face, instinctively, she reaches up and grabs his mental wrist and his eyes flit to hers then like he doesn’t know if he should stop.

V can feel the pressure on her jugular vein, she can feel the blood building in her cheeks and her breath become shorter. He isn’t doing it as hard as she knows he could, though. Honestly, she’s putting a lot of trust in the guy who had smacked her head into a window not long ago. 

“Fuck,” he lets go of her quickly and stumbles back a couple of steps, “was starting to feel it myself. Fuckin’ weird.”

She pants and touches her neck, getting her breath back, “Nothing stopped you though, yeah? You could’ve kept going?”

Her skin feels sensitive under her fingers where his hands had been. 

“Yeah but I would’ve passed out when you did,” he says, touching his own neck. 

“Guess you would’ve died when I did too, huh?”

“Guess so. Least I know suicide is still an option," he bleakly deadpans, "my turn now?” He runs a hand through his hair, clearly recovering from the odd experience of choking himself.

“Don’t see much point in that, Johnny, can’t kill something that’s already dead.”  
  
“Some _thing?_ Jesus, you are a bitch today,” he leans on the front of her car.

V looks at him. Yeah, that didn’t come out right.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. 

“Huh? I missed that,” he cups his hand around his ear.

“Oh, fuck off,” she rolls her eyes. He’s a dick.

“A dick you’re trying awfully hard to save as well as your own skin for som- Ah! Shit,” he touches his arm when he pinches it hard and she can’t help but laugh a bit at his reaction.

“So I _can_ hurt you, then,” she says, “that’s interesting.”

“What?” He still looks mad about the pinch.

“Interesting that you can feel pain. How can you? What would be the purpose of that?” She leans on the hood of the car beside him. “I don’t get this. I didn’t feel it, either, so that must only go one way.”

“Makes sense. I’m the one in your head, not the other way around. You’re the one with an actual body,” he says, “can’t believe you pinched me like a little bitch.”

“This better?” She asks before punching him hard in the same arm, knocking him sideways a little. 

“Fuck,” he looks at her with a deep frown but doesn’t retaliate, rubbing the spot she’d hit, “experiment over, alright? You can hurt me back. Confirmed.”

She sighs and lays back on the hood, frustration knitting her brow. Maybe she would’ve been better growing up in some corpo high rise, getting some kind of education that would make her smart enough to figure this shit out.

“You’re smart,” Johnny tells her, “shit’s just fuckin’ weird. Another thing to thank Arasaka for.” 

V doesn’t comment on the fact he just said something nice to her - he’ll only take it back if she does.

“How far away from me can you go when you’re in this form? You ever tried to leave my apartment when I was sleeping or anything?”

“Tried once. Could touch your door but not open it, phased through it. Got about halfway down the stairs before I ended up back in your head,” he says. 

“So you can touch stuff but you can only interact with me,” she taps her fingers on her stomach, feeling a headache coming behind her eyes. 

“I’m here but suppose I’m not here enough to interact with the world outside you,” he says, “fuckin’ wonderful, isn’t it?” 

V ignores that barb - it’s not like she envies his position any more than she does her own. 

“Can you feel it, when you’re glitching out? Not when you leave, I mean when you kinda… flicker,” he isn’t doing it much at that moment. Actually, she’s barely noticed it happening in the last few conversations they’ve had. 

“No.”

“Okay.” She looks up at the blue sky above her, far enough away from the smog of the city that it actually looks pretty. 

“And what about my memories? What can you see?”

“Memories come in flashes, vague. As do thoughts. Sometimes loud and clear, sometimes obscure and vague, more like a feeling, sometimes not at all. I find silence merciful.” 

“And when you’re in my head... where exactly are you?” 

“Feels like I am you - but you in a dream, all fuzzy and not quite in my body, because I’m not, I guess. Then when I slip out of awareness, kind of feels like being asleep… just darkness that I’m not aware of.”  
  
“What makes you come back? Wakes you up, I guess?”

“Unclear,” Johnny says, “haven’t figured out a way to control it fully.”

“Fully?”

“When I’m in your head, can’t control being ‘asleep’ or awake. When I’m awake though, sometimes, if I really feel like I need to talk to you face to face, engram-face to meat-face, I can hop out, talk to you like this. Most times I phase away on my own, sometimes it just happens.”

“But how do you choose to do it?”  
  
“Shit, hard to explain, force of will, I guess.”

“And your will sure has a lot of force behind it, huh? Strong enough to eat my fuckin’ brain.”

“Jesus.”

She looks at him, facing his back from where she’s lying on the hood. 

V knows she has to say it out loud this time, again. She’s snapping at everyone today. 

“Sorry.”

But he’s already gone the next time she blinks. 

“Fucker.” She curses 

She needs to get further out of the city, doesn’t even want it in her line of sight anymore. When she’s angry, upset, it feels especially cramped and oppressive. The city she thought would make her life so much better and that had just absolutely, undeniably fucked her and that she's now stuck in to try and figure if she can get unfucked. 

She’ll go to the Aldecaldo’s, get drunk with Panam, kick up some dirt on a bike and maybe find some roadside dive to get into a fight. Finding someone to fuck might do her some good too.

“Still don’t know how you found someone to fit a car with a fucking tape deck in 2077,” Johnny is in the passenger seat again, always looking supremely comfortable, knees apart like he just has to make all that room for his dick.

“I’m old fashioned,” she sighs, not really in the mood to talk anymore. V still feels edgy, needs to burn off steam without the presence of the person, on purpose or not, who's slowly killing her.

“Oh you surely are that, but it isn’t my least favourite thing about you,” he says. 

V bites, tired eyes watching the darkening road ahead, “What is?”

“That you’re a non-smoker,” he says. Then she gets why he reappeared.

“Johnny…”

Of all the things he bugs her about, this is the most frequent by far. The only thing he talks about more frequently than Arasaka is nicotine. 

“C’mon. Do I have to beg you? I will if it makes your panties wet, anything for you just to have one more.”

“Johnny I’ve had so many, I don’t wanna be goddamn addicted myself,” she thinks she already might be, or maybe that’s just his addiction bleeding into hers. Not like it matters, the effect is the same. V would just kind of prefer it if it was her own. 

Johnny lets out an annoyed huff, clicks open the glove box and picks up the packet of cigarettes. 

He takes one out and puts it between his lips, tries to light it, it won’t light.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah… I don’t understand why you can hold it but you can’t smoke it,” she says. Doesn’t get why he can open her glove box either. The headache worsens. 

“Me neither, but I honestly do not care right now, alright? Just put this between your pretty lips and smoke it, please, V, I’ll be your eternal slave, I will prostrate myself at your feet from now until the end times if you just smoke this fucking cigarette.”

“Okay, okay, Jesus,” she takes it from him, impatient, and feels the metal of his fingers when they touch. 

Opening the window with one hand, she puts the cigarette between her lips with the other. Johnny is impatient, watching her closely until she lights it and takes a long drag. Fuck, it does feel good. 

A few moments pass, then he feels it too. 

“Oh fuck yes,” he leans his head back and closes his eyes, savouring it. 

V smokes the whole thing for him, a little for herself, too. Maybe the ship had sailed on that whole getting addicted thing. 

“Thank you, V,” she says for him sarcastically when it’s done, throwing the butt out of the window.

But he’s already gone.

“Well, shit,” she rolls her eyes, glad that she’s arriving at the camp. 

Other people to talk to, just what she needs. 

“V! Didn’t know you were comin’!” Panam greets her with a quick hug when she finds her around the fire with a bunch of Aldecaldo’s. It’s got a good atmosphere, the camp at night; there’s no denying how much it reminds her of home to smell the cooking meat and hear the tinny sound of the radio. Everyone's chattering, split off into their separate groups, even a few kids play soccer up against one of the trailers. It’s nice. Nice is hard to come by in her life. 

“Last minute, hope that’s cool.”  
  
“Of course, anytime. You need me for something or…” Panam lead her through the camp. 

“Nah, just needed to get the fuck out of the city.”  
  
“I get you,” she says. V knew Panam would get it. 

“I walked in on any crazy Panam schemes? Any throwdowns with Saul?”

“Actually, no, you’ve caught us on a pretty chill evening,” she pushes a beer into V’s hand, “C’mon, hot dogs.”

V sits around the fire getting pleasantly buzzed and tries to forget about all that shit for a while, as if it’s contained only in Night City and can’t hurt her out here. 

She knows that isn't true and she doesn’t _really_ forget it, but it’s nice to pretend for a while. 

When thoughts of _‘why the fuck did you leave your clan in the first place?’_ start to swim, she gets up from the fire to wander a little. 

A little ways out of camp she spots Saul working on his truck. He’s easy to pick out, broad-shouldered, long, dark hair, the kind of moustache most men can't pull off. Hot as fuck, actually. 

“Hey, long time,” she says as she approaches, subtly biting at her lips to pinken them up while he isn’t looking.

“Oh, shit…” He smiles when he sees her, “Okay, what kinda trouble are you and Panam cooking up now?”

She holds up her hands, smiling a little too, “No trouble, no trouble. I’m insulted that you’d think so.”

“Uh-huh, crazy of me, right?”

His hair falls over his eye when he looks up at her. 

God, he’s handsome, she’s noticed it before, sure, but it’s definitely compounded by the nice little buzz she’s got going and how flattering the low light from the camp is on him.

She hopes it’s flattering on her, too, as the growing need to get the stress of the day out has built and she finds herself watching the muscle move in his arm under his tattoo. God, he could sling her over his shoulder if he wanted to, and she isn’t skinny. 

“You’re gonna fuck up your acceleration, there,” can’t help but chip in when she does actually pay attention to what he’s doing. 

“Huh?”

“Here,” she goes to his side, close, and nudges his hands out of the way so she can show him. Vehicles she knows and she’s happy to show off a little. 

When she’s done fiddling in the hood she closes it and he gives her a rag for her hands. 

“Alright, let’s take her for a spin. Comin’?” Saul asks. When he does, his eyes drift down her body, just for a second, but she notices. Her trousers are tight leather, her t-shirt is a little dirty, but it fits her nicely too. 

It isn't just how he looks at her, anyway. She’s always picked up on that energy coming off a person when they stand a bit too close, humming with warm, fizzling energy. He wants to fuck her and she is quickly realising that she's happy to oblige him. 

They get in his truck and speed through the sand - his car’s tires have no trouble handling the terrain, they don’t spin or struggle, just kick up dirt behind them until the camp is just a glow in the distance. 

It’s nice to laugh, have fun and draw doughnuts with the wheels as if they're teenagers. 

When they get out of the truck she realises they’re over the bluff, and Night City is visible in the distance again. 

“What a shithole.” Saul stands next to her and looks towards it too, glowing with endless advertising, building on building, corp on corp. 

V kisses him with no preamble, just puts her hand on his neck and pulls him down to her mouth. He kisses her back readily, grabs her ass like he’s been waiting to do it. 

Then he pulls back and takes a breath, “V - you’re - I ain’t got time for a girl right now I-”

“It’s not gonna be more than this,” she tells him straight, “I’m not gonna call you tomorrow crying for you to come back, alright? If you wanna fuck me, I want you to fuck me.”

“Fuck,” is all he says, then falls back into the kiss.

Soon, her pants are off, tossed in his truck along with her boots and her underwear and she’s up against the door of his truck, held by the thighs while he screws all coherent thought out of her. 

V keeps her eyes shut, just in case _he_ appears and says something to spoil the orgasm she can feel rapidly building. She presses her forehead into his shoulder, holds his hair tight in her hand and digs her heels into the backs of his thighs, so close. 

He’s quiet about it, which has never been her preference in men, generally hearing how much they like it gets her halfway there alone, but he’s good anyway. He holds her tight and sucks on her neck some, going at it hard and rough enough that she comes with her nails in the back of his vest and a gasping moan into the open air.

He follows her, has the decency to pull out and finish on the dirt, still grasping her ass when he does, a guttural noise leaving his throat.

“Jesus, fuck,” he sets her down when their mutual twitching has worn off and kisses her again, she smiles against his mouth.

“Think you’ve got a little fixation,” she reaches back and touches his hand on her ass.

Saul releases his grip then, “Shit, caught me.”

“S’alright,” she reaches into the truck for her underwear and pants and slips them back on. He holds her hand like a gentleman so she can keep her balance when she steps into her boots. 

“You are somethin’ else, V,” he tells her when she’s fully dressed. 

“So are you, Saul,” she taps him on the strong arm, a pleasant flush in her cheeks and a healthy thrum between her legs, “you mind saying bye to Panam for me? Ready for bed about now, gonna delta.” 

“Sure,” he gets back in his truck and rolls down the window to tap her ass before he pulls away, which makes her laugh, “see you around.”

“Later.”

V calls her car, feeling decidedly more relaxed when she gets back in the driver’s seat and heads back to the city. It’d been way too long since she’d had a good lay, she’d almost forgotten how relaxing it could feel after when her muscles were all relaxed from the serotonin release. 

She’s so pleasantly distracted that she actually jumps when Johnny reappears beside her. 

“Shit,” she curses. How long had he been aware?

“Were you there when me and Saul-?”

“Yep,” his sunglasses are on and he looks out of the window with his boot up on the dash. 

“Oh,” she says, feeling a little heat in her cheeks that he’d been looking out of her eyes _then_ of all times. 

“Thanks,” he actually sounds huffy. 

“Sorry about it. Not that it would stop you if it were the other way around.” She could not imagine the amount of pussy he would immediately try to go out and get if he was in the driver’s seat, actually. 

“No judgement for having a hearty sexual appetite, just didn’t know you were hard up enough to be desperate.”

V looks at him. He’s got that edge to his tone he gets when he’s in a mean mood. She really should just ignore him. 

“ _Desperate_?”

But his mean mood puts her in one, too, so she can’t drop it. 

“Yeah. Couldn’t have been giving it off any harder if you’d got down on your knees and opened your mouth in front of him."

“Well if you think that’d do it for him I’ll be sure to start that way next time.” She smirks.

“Eager to please? Him?”

“The hot Aldecaldo leader with big strong arms that can pick me up and throw me around? Yeah, shit choice.”

Johnny is silent, when she looks at him, he phases out. 

V rolls her eyes and turns on the radio. 

Seconds later, though, he’s back again. 

“So was this little jaunt out to the desert just for some nomad cock?”

“Jesus goddamn Christ, why is this your new favorite talking point? Since when did you become such a goddamn puritan, huh? Judging me for this?” 

“Not judging, just surprised,” he says, “And curious. Do you always make that much racket when you come, or was that for his benefit? Sounded like one of your buddy Judy’s braindances.” 

“Oh, hot enough for a braindance, am I? Think I’ve got potential?” She can’t help smirking, he’s being a dick, she’ll be a dick right back.

“I’d work on making it sound a little more real for the discerning customer.” 

“You don’t think that was real? There _must_ be a delay in my feeling getting to you, get ready to cum in your pants so hard you see stars in a couple of seconds.”

Johnny breathes a little laugh out of his nose, but V thinks she can detect a bitter edge. She ignores it. She’s too tired to try and understand him or to try and tell if that grating feeling is coming from herself or from their shared connection.

It’s quiet for a while, they’re back in the city limits soon enough and she is more than ready for bed. 

“V,” He says eventually.  
  
“What?”

“I’m not fading out.”

“Okay, fine,” she pulls into the parking lot of her building. 

“Don’t mean that way. Mean like it’s been a while now, right? And I’m not fading out. Just tried to do it, too; didn’t work.” 

“Oh, shit,” V looks at him, turning off the engine, “has been a while.”  
  
“Perhaps there’s something to your insane experimentation,” he says. 

“Don’t think it has anything to do with that, think this is all more complicated than we can get our heads around,” she rubs her face with her hands, “especially my head. God, I need some sleep.” 

“All fucked out?” He asks when they get out of the car. 

“Uh-huh,” she’s aware he’s following her into the elevator, going through the motions of walking even though he doesn’t really have to.  
  
Johnny doesn’t say anything in response, just makes a little grunting sound and leans against the elevator wall as it moves up. 

He’s still around when they go into the apartment and she’s pretty sure it’s the longest he ever has been. He sits on the couch and stretches himself out like he owns the place - he might, eventually, V’s mind helpfully reminds her. 

“Wanna keep an eye on you and see how long this lasts but I also wanna change, so just, try not to fade for a second, okay?” She gets her comfy clothes from where she left them on the bed that morning. 

“First off, I’ve got no control over it right now. Second of all, I’ve seen you naked many times,” he points out.

“I like the illusion of privacy, it’s different when you’re… There…” She gestures to him. “As opposed to here.” She points at her head. 

“Alright, crazy,” he leans back into the couch cushions. 

V changes and washes her face in the bathroom, it’s kind of nice, actually, knowing he’s out there. He can feel what she feels but at least he’s not behind her eyes watching her floss and take a piss. She leaves the leather trousers and her somewhat sweaty smelling shirt on the floor of the bathroom, glad to be in sweats and a loose tank top, her body able to breathe. 

For a moment, she takes in her reflection. The dark circles under her eyes are permanent now and the sickness from the engram is making her lose weight - she still has meat on her bones, big hips and a little belly, but she can see all those going away with time eventually.

She tries not to think of it and takes the tie that is holding her hair on the top of her head out so the blonde tresses fall around her shoulders. A shower can wait for the morning, she just needs to sleep. 

“Jesus, you’re still here,” she says when she finds Johnny where she left him, slouching into the couch. 

“Yep,” he says, “fucking exhausted too. Will you go to sleep? It’s been like two days.”

“I am,” she yawns big on cue and slips under the sheets that feel absolutely blissful after such a long time, “just feels like I’m ruining a big moment, you being out this long.” 

“Can bring it up with whatever Arasaka fuck can fix this for us,” Johnny stands up and crosses the room to bend down to her height, “you need sleep so I need sleep. Want me to sing you a song? Cuddle you?”

“Want you to shut the fuck up for once, that would be nice,” her eyelids feel heavy already.

Her night with the Alcedados and Saul feels like days ago, not a couple of hours. Lack of sleep makes time move like molasses. Johnny’s right, she’s put it off too long, always busy, busy. 

“Maybe he just wasn’t that memorable,” Johnny isn’t in front of her anymore, but she can feel his weight on the bed behind her. She’s too tired to turn over and look at him. 

“Should’ve known you -” sleep starts to take over, “wouldn’t shut up.”

“That gonna become a regular thing now? The nomad cock?”

She shakes her head against the pillow just slightly, more of a rock side to side.

“One-time deal,” okay, she cannot talk anymore. Drifting out. “Matter of convenience.”

“So not an affair of the heart?” His voice is quiet, sounds far away.

“Affair of the pussy,” she murmurs, “night night, samurai, fuck off please.”

Vaguely, somewhere, she hears him let out a quiet little laugh, and for no explainable reason, she feels something like relief wash through her chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! I could not physically resist writing a Silverhand fic any longer. Bugs I can handle, not letting me romance rockstar Keanu Reeves is a crime and I want. My. Money. Back.


	2. Absolutely Fucked on Every Level

The next day, V shows up at Misty’s Esoterica with a box of tea in one hand and a chunk of rose quartz the size of her palm in the other. 

“Means love and harmony right? Something like that…” V leans her elbows on the counter, definitely not used to this 'showing regret' stuff, “and I just thought the tea seemed like your kind of thing.”

“Thanks, V,” Misty smiles at her softly, examining the stone.

“Anyway, yeah,” V scratches the back of her neck, “my way of sayin’ sorry for being a cunt.”

“I know when you mean it and when you don’t,” Misty says and reaches across the counter to lay her hand over V’s. She’s probably the most gentle person V has ever met - it still throws her off sometimes. 

“You going down to Vik?” She asks.

“Yeah,” she sighs, “apology tour continues.”

“Come back up when you’re done,” Misty says, “I'll make tea.”

For Vik, all she has to offer is a tight hug around the neck and a murmured apology into his shoulder. She’ll never say it, but fighting with him feels like fighting with her dad, or what she thinks fighting with her dad would feel like if he hadn’t delta'd the second her mom said 'knocked up.' 

“S’alright, kid,” Vik taps her back a bit too hard and she smiles to herself and pulls back. 

“Was just… After Hellman was such a fucking bust I was driving myself crazy trying to figure something else out, trying to figure out some way out of it,” she shakes her head, “not making excuses, no reason to talk to you like that after all the shit you’ve done for me.”

“I said it’s alright,” Vik says, “I can forgive a few shitty words from you right now, okay? Not exactly a stress-free time you’re having.”

No, it is not. She sighs and leans back on his desk. 

“Do you think it’s possible that Johnny seems more real to me because I’m not fighting him as hard?”

“You’re not fighting him?” Vik looks surprised, washing up his hands for the next surgery.  
  
“I was,” she says, “was taking the blockers and ignoring him, trying to push him out. But he said something to me after a bad malfunction, right after Hellman actually. Said it’s ‘time we let a little trust take hold.’ I agreed with him, honestly, and the malfunctions haven’t been as frequent and he’s not as glitchy when he’s around… You think that… Means anything?”  
  
“I wish I could tell you. Honestly, I hate feeling so useless, but I’m still asking around for anyone that might be able to help,” he says, “sure he’s not… Sure he’s not manipulating you V? Trying to get you to let your guard down to make it easier for him?”

“I’ve considered that,” she knows Johnny could be listening but there’s no point hiding it, it’s never been a secret in her own head, “I dunno though… I mean, I can’t put _all_ my trust in him but I don’t think he’s lying to me either.” 

“You know better than me,” he says, “listen, even if it doesn’t help you with anything physical, it’s got to at least ease things in the meantime while you try and figure this shit out, huh?” 

V nods - not having such serious animosity with him has definitely made things less stressful so far, even if he does get his shitty moods at times, “You’re right,”

She sticks around and watches the boxing match with him for a while before his next patient comes and she heads up for tea with Misty. 

“Sit,” Misty gestures to the chair where she’d once watched her checking Jackie’s chakras. V sits in the chair, takes the clay pot of fruit tea that Misty hands to her before she sits on the floor with her back against the counter. 

“You’re tired,” Misty says like a pure statement of fact. 

“I am.”

“Do you have time to rest?”

Usually, no, not a single second, but she is in a bit of a waiting period right now. 

“I mean, in the short term? Kinda. Got the engram schematics and nothing to do with them but run around town screaming like a crazy gonk for someone to help me understand them,” she leans back comfortably in the chair. 

The tea is absolutely disgusting, but she drinks it. 

“What about that man you mentioned from Arasaka?”

“Takemura? Haven’t heard from him in a while. Won't go into all the detes but he’s supposed to get me in a room with Hanako Arasaka, which is sounding like a stupider and stupider plan by the day.” 

“Why?”

V chews her bottom lip; she’s talking too much.

“Shit, I shouldn’t be telling you this, don’t want you in danger,” she says.  
  
“Everything said here stays here, V,” she says, “talk to me.” 

“Just - feel like I’m driving myself crazier with all this, one lead to the next to the next, every single day since we lost Jackie and I put this thing in my head,” shit, she actually feels choked, “none of it ever comes to anything, you know? Just more dead people and more shit piling on top of me.”

“You feel like you’re running in a dream,” Misty nods. 

“What?”  
  
“Like you’re running in a dream. When you just keep going and going and you never get anywhere and your limbs feel like iron.”

“Fuck, that’s exactly how I feel,” V shakes her head. She has not been giving Misty enough credit for being so perceptive, “how the hell did a dummy like Jackie nab you?”  
  
Misty smiles a little - V can tell Misty feels the same pull in her stomach that she does when his name comes up. Sad and happy, comforted and pained all at the same time. 

Jesus, V wonders if he had any idea how many people would miss him this hard. 

“So yeah, I’m running in a dream, my limbs feel like iron and I feel like at the end of it I might just end up with an Arasaka bullet between the eyes.” She says. “ _These_ evil fucks are my last lead? My last chance at surviving? Isn’t it so stupid for me to believe for some reason _I’ll_ be the super special gonk they care to save after all the bodies they’re built on?”

Misty is quiet, listening intently. 

“And even if they can help me they’ll want something in return. Don't think learning the truth about Yorinobu will be enough, relying on their good fuckin' will,” she sips the tea; it’s gross, but there’s something soothing about the warmth, “honestly think I’d rather set myself on fire than do one thing for those bastards.”

“Christ, V, was that me or you talking?” Johnny appears on Misty’s counter, examining a dreamcatcher hanging above it. 

“So don’t try Arasaka again,” Misty says like it’s obvious, “when Takemura calls, tell him you’re done.”  
  
“I can’t do that,” V breathes a little laugh.

“Why not?”

Then it hits her again, the nasty reminder of why exactly she’s doing all this that's always there in the back of her mind like the goddamn error message that obscures her vision sometimes: 'RELIC MALFUNCTION, YOU ARE GOING TO FUCKING CROAK YOU STUPID BITCH.'

“Because I’m gonna fuckin’ die,” she says with a shrugged shoulder, wishing her voice didn’t sound so weak.

Misty takes V’s hand and holds it gently. V must be tired because she actually feels like she could cry like a little kid. 

“You didn’t die yesterday,” Misty says, “you’re not dead now. Why can’t you take some rest and really _think_ about what you want to do next?”

Stopping and thinking? It seems so obvious and yet V hasn’t considered that for weeks. V sits with that for a second and wonders how good it might feel to just spend a day, two days, not chasing her tail. 

She gets up and bends to kiss Misty on the forehead before she heads out. 

“You’re an angel, Mist.”

** ** ** 

“So this is your plan?”

“This is my plan.”

V sits on her bed with an open box of pizza next to her along with various snacks, a couple of bottles of soda and a synth marijuana inhaler for good measure. She has her comfies on, she’s listening to music and reading a paper book, she’s being a normal fucking person. 

“You forget we’re on the clock?”

“You asking me if I forgot you’re devouring my brain like a fuckin’ eel? No. Haven’t forgot,” she looks at him over the top of her book, too relaxed to be mad. 

“So what is this?” Johnny sits down on the bed too - she’s sitting up with her back against the wall, he lays against her pillows, leather pants brushing her toes.

“I’m listening to someone for a change. Misty was right, I need a break from all this shit,” she takes a big bite of pizza, “constantly just clutching to stay alive is exhausting. Need some time to just try to be myself while I’ve _got_ myself.” 

Johnny looks at her for a moment before toeing off his boots even though she’s pretty sure he could just vanish them if he wanted to. Still, they fall off his feet onto her bed and clunk down on the floor when he kicks them off. 

Weird as fuck. 

“Usually I'd question the wisdom of your hippy-dippy, granola-goth buddy but, yeah, it is exhausting,” he concedes.

They sit quietly for a while. He stays in the room, tapping his fingers on his chest to her records, looking and feeling so present it seems absolutely impossible that he’s not. He doesn’t say anything, but she can feel he likes her music taste. If he asked, she'd say she doesn't give a shit what he thinks, but of all the things he was, a shitty musician was not one of them. 

“You a Samurai fan?” He asks after a while, watching her pick a jalapeno of her pizza. Had he heard her thinking about that?

V smirks a little, “Surprised you haven’t asked me that already, top-shelf narcissist that you are.” 

“Fine, don’t tell me,” Johnny rolls his eyes, “think I heard A Like Supreme rattling around in that noggin of yours the other day, though.”

“Maybe it was rattling around in yours,” V says. 

“Same diff.”

“Shit, don’t say that,” V shakes her head and takes a bite of pizza; it’s fun to have little bits of information hidden from him, but she’ll give him this, “was a big fan in my teen years, actually.”

“Yeah?” Johnny’s eyebrow quirks when he looks at her.

“Uh-huh,” she nods, “first song I ever listened to in my first car was Chippin’ In. First song I ever blew someone to as well, come to think of it.”

“Hot.” Johnny smirks. “Wait, how old were you?”

“I dunno, 18?”

“Okay, good, then my comment stands.”

She scoffs and drops the pizza slice down, getting full. 

“So how big a fan, huh? You have a t-shirt?” 

“Yep,” she really did - she had the t-shirt, she had the albums, she had a half-ripped poster that moved from tent to tent and trailer to trailer with her when they were on the road; she even had a big ol' crush on Kerry Eurodyne at one point, “spoke to my angry little soul.”

Johnny doesn’t say anything, but she can tell he’s pleased with that. 

Then it’s quiet again and he lets her read in peace for a while. It makes her wonder if this is what it would be like if there were some way to extricate him from her but keep him around. Would they hang out like this? Would she want to? She thinks she would, but she's pretty sure he would jump in a car and floor it as many miles as possible away from her. 

“I want some pizza.” He says after a while.  
  
“You’ll get it in a second,” she puts the book down, not concentrating on it anymore.  
  
“Wanna taste it on my own tongue, feel it in my own stomach,” he says. 

V does feel bad for him, she’s not going to fault him for complaining right now.

“I’m sorry, Johnny,” is all she can say, and she does mean it.

“Not your fault,” Johnny takes his sunglasses off and closes them on his stomach: looking up at the ceiling, “would’ve never ended up in your head if I’d not blown up Arasaka Tower.”

“Don’t tell me you regret _that_ ,” she says, amused, cracking open a NiCola. 

“I hate that shit, too sweet,” he points to the can and unfastens his bulletproof vest, drops that on the floor too before settling back into the cushions, “And course I fuckin’ don’t regret blowing those fucks to kingdom come… Not feeling too hot about my reasoning, though.”

Johnny actually sounds _pensive_ ; she doesn’t know where it’s come from. 

“Burn Corpo Shit, right? Try to end the Fourth Corporate War?”

“Try to ease my guilt?” He looks at her. 

“What?”

He lets out a long breath and casts his eyes back to the ceiling. She can feel what he’s feeling then, tension and regret and sadness and a little embarrassment roll off him in waves. 

V sets down her can on the top of her datapad and listens to him. 

“Alt,” he says eventually, “couldn’t save her the first time so tried again, failed again.”

“Well, you loved her,” V tries to be gentle with him, aware if she says the wrong thing he might realise how open he’s being and close right back up. 

“Didn’t love her as much as I felt like a piece of shit for how a treated her,” he fiddles with his dog tags, “like Rogue, like every fuckin’ woman in my life. Shit, like every _person_ in my life.”

V keeps quiet. 

“Had a skill for getting them to love me then pushing them away, hard as possible, nasty as possible,” he says, “just Alt was the first one I felt bad about... Now she’s what? This pixelated mega ghost? ‘Cause of my failure?”

“You couldn’t do anything, Johnny, she was a runner and she went to do a job. Arasaka’s always been bigger and more evil than all of us.”

“Yeah,” he doesn’t sound convinced.

“Hey,” she considers reaching over to put her hand on his arm - she doesn’t think he’d like that, though, “you tried, alright? You couldn’t have tried any harder.”

“Trying doesn’t mean anything if you fucking fail.”  
  
“I disagree,” V says, “but I don’t know if I have the stamina for a philosophical discussion about morals.”

“No need for philosophising, anyway,” Johnny says, “not making an emotional confession, here, making a point.” 

“What is that point?” V asks, because she honestly doesn’t get it. 

Johnny takes another long breath. 

“Corps are the biggest cancer this planet has ever seen, they're the absolute worst of humanity and they will pick and pick at the scabs of anything trying to be good until the wounds fester and the infection kills it. Arasaka is the biggest and the worst and I don't regret a single thing I did to them," Johnny says and the sentiment is familiar to V, it's nothing new, it's not surprising. 

His next word is surprising though.

"But," Johnny says, "that I let that hate be my one and only, that I put it above everything and everyone... Well, shit, I might just regret that."

V's throat feels dry, she swallows, just listening to him be more honest and raw than she's ever heard. 

"The point is, V, that as much as we might not always see eye-to-eye, _you’re_ not dying because of me,” he says, looking at her then, “you take your break, but we still have to figure this shit out after.”

“I know,” she nods. 

“Good,” Johnny sits up a little, putting his sunglasses back on, “and eat some fuckin’ fruit, will you? Or scurvy’s gonna get you before I do.”

He vanishes then, leaves her to her R&R. 

He also leaves her with the fact he just revealed that he actually gives a shit about her. So, _fuck_. What is she supposed to do with that? 

** ** **

Johnny, again, finds himself out of her head for a long time that night. She eats her fill, a bigger appetite than she’s had lately, and falls asleep with the wrappers and scraps haphazardly shoved on the floor to wait for morning.

So that just leaves Johnny there, in her room, listening from where he sits on her windowsill to her quiet breaths as she sleeps.

He’d said too fucking much before, let his mouth get away from him. It’s not stuff she needs to know, about his feelings, his regrets. She definitely doesn’t need to know he _cares_ about her, because it’s embarrassing to _him_ that he does. But she had been in a talking mood that day with Misty, and that had gotten to him, too. 

Maybe there was truth serum in that ass-tasting tea. 

Chick he ‘met’ a month ago after fifty years of nothing, stuck in her head, stuck watching her stupid decisions as well as her good ones, and he actually gives a shit about her enough that he would gladly vanish back into the ether if that gave her another shot at living.

His preference is to live, of course, his impulse is to just let the engram do its work and learn how to live in a girl’s body eventually, but he doesn’t actually _want_ that. 

The woman has given him no choice but to give a shit about her by being so fucking impressive at every turn. She doesn’t always do what he would do, but he’s come to realise that she usually ends up doing something better. Better in terms of result and better in terms of not being a dogshit person. 

She can act like a bitch all she wants, but she cares about people, she cares about them so much her heart hurts sometimes. Maybe that’s why he’s been feeling so goddamn contemplative lately, guilt gnawing away at his stomach over what a bastard he’d been. 

The most fucked up thing is that he thinks V might care about him too. Even when he’s being dick, she looks at him sometimes like… Like he doesn’t know what. Not mad or disappointed, not annoyed or bored, just like she _gets_ it, like she gets _him_ even when he’s not sure that he does. 

He hears her murmur and she turns over in bed, nuzzling her nose into the pillow. 

Maybe it’s not all just an emotional thing either. She’s goddamn pretty. All smooth skin and soft hair and full, pink lips, no visible tech at all. 

That would be easier to deal with, if it was just a physical thing. 

Unbidden, he remembers the other night with Saul and he hopes the shot of anger he feels about it doesn’t wake her up.

He’s not mad at her much; he was at first, when he'd first popped into consciousness to hear her shout, _"oh fuck yes"_ on some other guy's dick. Johnny knows she did what she had to do to get her head straight and okay, the orgasm _had_ felt pretty goddamn amazing. Wasn't like she was in love with the guy, that would be a whole other avalanche of shitty to deal with. 

Still, the Aldecaldo she screwed? Yeah, Johnny hopes he wraps his bike around a streetlamp. 

He won’t dwell on it, _can’t_ dwell on it, because then she’ll feel it and she’ll work it out. Work out that the guy living in her head would much rather be fucking her brains out than overwriting them with his psyche. 

“Johnny…”

Fuck. He freezes where he’s sitting, feeling caught, but she’s just talking in her sleep. It's nice to think she's dreaming about him.

Nice. 

Good to know he’s fucked on absolutely every level, he supposes. Really lets him know where he stands. 

** ** ** 

The vegetating and oversleeping bonanza lasts three days before she’s restless. As she promised herself, she pauses the chase to fix the whole 'dying imminently' thing and busies herself elsewhere. Night City might have lost its allure but taking gigs and making money still does it for her.

That’s how she ends up following River Ward through a marketplace, gathering intel. How a job for a boujee politician and his wife had turned into going full Holmes and Watson alongside a cop she still isn’t sure, but money’s money, a distraction is a distraction. 

Plus, being in the market gives her a chance to hack into an ATM and grab herself some eddie’s. It’s not her strongest suit, hacking, but a couple of hundred eurodollars at a time is enough to pad out her account and pay her rent - shit, she still owes Vik a stack or 20. 

So she hooks her datapad up to the thing and gets to work. Not like she even has to be subtle, grabbing a few hundred from a machine in Night City is like klepping a candy bar, no one gives a shit. 

“Why is it you hack like it’s 2020?” Johnny leans against it. 

“What? Can’t see that in my memories?” She tries to focus on sorting through the code. God, she wishes everyone still did everything with cash. 

“No, your past is too fuzzy in my head.” 

“Our clan was big on being ‘of the earth’, much as possible. Grow your own fruits and vegetables, avoid synth meat when you can, that type of stuff, so having tech grafted to your body like that? Big no-no,” She closes the datapad and slips it in her backpack when she’s done, “Gotta have the shard port for pretty much everything, of course. Look how fucking well that turned out for me.” 

“And the optics?”

“Only got those when I came here,” she stands on her tiptoes and cranes her neck to look for River again in the crowd, “honestly it still kind of freaks me the fuck out, the chrome. Probably get rid if I ever get out of here.” 

“Well, thanks,” Johnny holds up his metal arm, walking beside her with his usual slow pace, all swagger, even dead. 

“Don’t mean like that. Had plenty of vets with metal limbs in the clan and if a kid was born blind no one was about to stop the parents getting them optic implants. But that extra shit? Cords in your arms, extra set of eyes? Always seemed fucked up to me.” 

She spots River leaning on a market stall. He’s hard to miss. 

“That why I feel a little shot of fear up your neck whenever we have to deal with those Maelstrom freaks?”

V’s hesitant. Admitting she’s scared of something isn’t something she likes, but Johnny’s in her head, he knows and he doesn't seem to be acting judgemental about it. 

“Yeah, it just… Seems like a fucked up thing to do to your body, I guess,” she says, “I’m old fashioned, like I said.”

“V,” River greets her quietly when she approaches. 

“Oink fuckin’ oink,” Johnny still walks beside her, annoyance radiating off him, cigarette hanging out of his lips. It makes her want one. 

“I know,” V says, making an effort not to talk to him out loud after days of doing that, “scratch is scratch, though, not gonna do anything I wouldn’t do normally.”

She sticks to that, probably how she gets Christine Markov to talk so quickly and tell them what they need to know. V knows when she needs to be scary and when she needs to be charming, and she’s glad to know charm still works. Also had to work pretty hard to counter River's cop vibes, that always shut people right up. 

River smiles at her when they make their way back through the market, “Heh, pretty good at this, aren’t you?”

“Just got one of those faces, people love to open up to me,” V shrugs. It’s weird to be friendly with a cop instead of just clocking him and stealing his car. 

“I can see that,” he says, and his voice takes on this quality that’s kind of softer. River is _really_ looking at her, she notices then. 

She is looking good lately, she has to admit - rest has brought a bit of glow back to her skin, and she’s actually bought herself some new clothes. Lighter shade of blonde, too, that really does it for some boys. 

“Oh, Jesus, it’s not just the preem new leathers… This guy wants to fuck you. Know that, right?” 

Johnny sits up on the hood of River’s car when they get back to it. 

It’s a little soon, sure, but she is kind of getting vibes too. 

“So we’re heading into Animal territory next, huh? You got all your shots?” V asks and takes the now familiar pack of cigarettes from her back pocket. It's a pleasant, buzzy relief to light up. 

River laughs a little, “Fully immunized, yeah. Ready for action, if it comes to that?”

“Patronizing,” Johnny murmurs, “you could do with one pistol what he couldn’t do with a fuckin’ arsenal.”

“Always ready,” V says and holds the cigarette in her lips to tie her increasingly long hair up on the top of her head. It’s getting messy, she should just cut it. 

Quickly, she changes her mind about that. No, she shouldn’t cut it, Johnny likes it.

But Johnny had never actually _told_ her that, so that just means…

She looks at where he was sitting on the car, but he’s gone. 

V brushes it off, she just wants to finish the job. Hard not to think about the fact it's the first time she's noticed him having an opinion on the way she looks. 

Anyway, she’s got River to focus on, and oh yeah, he definitely wants to fuck her, he's giving off fuck-vibes. 

For the rest of the day, she tries to brush it off when he’s nice to her and when he tries to make conversation in the car. He’s not ugly, and maybe if it had been a little longer since she’d got laid she’d think differently, but a cop is a cop and as far as she’s concerned, he’s on the side of ineffectual at best and corrupt at worst.

 _He_ might be a good cop, but that doesn’t count for much when he works for a system that chooses to stomp on people’s necks and protect corps every day. 

“Hear fuckin’ hear,” Johnny says from the backseat as they pull into Animal territory; the day has turned to evening and the end of the mission is in sight. V’s glad for it - the whole thing has turned into a bigger job than she thought. 

She notices that Johnny has been around a lot today, keeping a close eye and not letting her forget he’s there for a second. 

He vanishes when she sneaks into the Animal compound though, lets her concentrate. Somehow, she manages to pick through the tough bastards on her own. There aren’t a lot of them on patrol that evening, and the ones in the underground club are thankfully already a little wasted and not on top of her game. 

Target practice is always welcome, though. 

She’s putting her pistol with _‘Jackie’_ carved haphazardly into the barrel into her boot holster when River joins her again, unable to hide being impressed. That she doesn’t mind, a narcissistic part of her kind of enjoys when people find her impressive. 

“So you do all the work and he sits back eating doughnuts, that it?” Johnny appears in the club while they pick through it, looking for clues as to what happened to Rhyne.

“Couldn’t come in without a warrant,” she says to Johnny, “trying to be a good cop, I guess.”

“Pfft,” Johnny scoffs.

“Gotta say, this is something,” River steps over another body of one the Animals and comes to where she’s making her way upstairs, “not seen many people shoot like you.”

“Practice makes perfect,” V walks ahead of him down the hall, peaking in the rooms.

Not anywhere she would come for a hot time, the place is gross; all the illusion of fancy with the same stink of dried cum.

“Never got why people come to places like this for braindances. Know the material is supposed to be preem but you’re just watching porn and jerking off in public, right?”

“Uh,” River sounds a little flustered, “yeah, it’s not my scene either.”

“Still,” V walks into one of the booths where she spots a set-up headset on the seat, “could make some decent scratch off this.”

“Can’t let you take that, V, could be evidence,” River says, not moving from the doorway when she makes to leave the booth. 

Her immediate response to being boxed in is to fight, but she suspects this is less about intimidation and more about him proving how by the book he is. So she resists the urge to shove him out of her way, this time. 

“Well, you can watch it and find out if it’s evidence,” she says, holding it out of his reach when he outstretches his hand to take it, “if it’s not, though, I’m taking it, no discussions.” 

She’s standing close to him then, making him have to tip his chin down to look at her. Jesus, he’s fucking tall. Not that she thinks she’s going to have to take him, she can sense a man that likes to be put in his place from a mile away. He's giving off the energy of a guy who likes to have a girl on top and a little pressure on his windpipe from time to time. 

“Okay?” The side of her mouth quirks in a smile. 

“Okay,” he concedes, face serious, but she sees his adam's apple bob. He lets her brush by him to find the office. 

Honestly, she should’ve seen the solution to this little tale from a mile away: Rhyne was killed, his braindance was spiked, and River’s friend Detective Han had been right there to make the whole thing go smoothly. So predictable it's almost boring. 

She sees River turn stony when they watch the surveillance video, hands on the desk, head hanging for a second. 

“Dirty cops, in Night City? Colour me shocked.” Johnny looks pleased with River's dismay, leaning back in the desk chair. 

“Well, guess this isn’t some preem material that’s going to make me a few eddie’s,” V hands the headset over to River, “we done here? Got the info Peralez needed.” 

River sighs, if he’s looking for some comfort, he’s looking in the wrong direction. She can be nice to people, sure, but his naivety almost irritates her. This is Night City, did he expect to find good cops here?

“Yeah, yeah,” River straightens up after making a copy of the tape, “let’s go.”

About the time River is confronting Han is when V starts to figure out how she’s going to negotiate for more money from Peralez. It’s been a long fucking day and she’s ready to eat and never make the mistake of working with cops again. Criminals who think they're better than other criminals. 

“This can’t blow your mind, can it?” V has to ask when Han drives away and River leans his elbows on the concrete barrier overlooking the beach below. It’s fully dark now, and getting chilly, not that he can probably feel it in that coat.

“Still a letdown,” he says, shaking his head, “might seem stupid to you, but I didn’t think I was the only one around there with ideals.”

“NCPD is not the place for ideals, never will be,” V says, which probably isn’t very helpful.

River doesn’t respond.

“Okay, gonna delta, nice meeting you, officer,” she pushes off from the barrier and salutes him, taking out her phone to call her bike.

“Wait, hang on,” River stops her mid-step towards the road, “Listen, we’re at a diner already, let me get you some food for your trouble?”

He looks so earnest it almost makes her feel bad for being so cold. He’s still a cop, but she looks up at the sign for Chubby Buffalo’s BBQ and hunger wins out. She wants to eat and free food always tastes better. 

“Say no, V,” Johnny doesn’t appear, stays in her head. 

“Yeah, thanks,” she says.

“Fuck’s sake.”

V ignores him and follows River into the diner. The place smells great and she couldn't care less if it’s synth meat or real, all she knows is that she wants a cheeseburger, a beer and a pile of wings. 

They slide into a booth and he shrugs his coat off to the red vest he’s wearing below. Jesus, he’s huge, it _would_ kind of do it for her if he weren’t so goddamn earnest. 

The food doesn’t take too long, which is good because it might knock her cred if anyone sees her eating with him. 

“So, what’s your deal?” He asks after a while, watching her wipe sauce off the corner of her mouth with a napkin. 

“What?” She asks, mouth half full. 

“Know you’re a merc, just wondering why the Peralez’s would hire you.” 

“Guess it’s a combo of me being the best and cops being about as useful as a rusty dildo,” she shrugs. 

She can feel Johnny like that.

River huffs a little chuckle, “Funny girl.” He says. 

Well, at least he’s not a total humourless dick about it. She downs her food in big bites and dodges most of his questions about her life, ready to just go home with a full stomach and collect her eddie’s tomorrow. 

“Were you born in Night City?” River asks.

“No.”

Clearly, he was expecting more than that; he sets his mug of beer down and laughs a bit. 

“Seriously, you’re not gonna tell me anything about yourself?”

V cocks her head, “Are we on a date, River?”

“Course not,” he says, surprisingly good at holding his composure. 

“Then you don’t need to know about me, do you?” She drinks down the last dregs of her beer. 

“Need and want are different things,” River is undeterred, apparently, looking somehow endeared by her.

“Fuck, I think the meaner you are to him the more of his cock he imagines in your ass,” Johnny is right next to her when he shows up and it throws her off balance for a second, but she recovers quickly. 

So odd that River can’t even see him but V can actually feel his arm brushing hers. 

“It’s kind of in my nature not to give cops what they need _or_ want,” she says, leaning her elbows on the table, “you seem okay, River, but we’re not gonna be friends.” 

He blinks in a bit of surprise, “Jesus, ouch,” he says, “alright, message received.” 

“Good,” she says and stands, “thanks for dinner.”

“No problem,” River, to his credit, doesn’t look bitter, he looks some mix of amused and taken aback, maybe he’s not so bad, maybe he’s just stupid enough to think he can change her mind. 

She’s out in the cold again soon enough and she thinks she can see River watching her through the window. Maybe she was a little too mean. 

“Gotta be honest with you, V, think that might have given me my first semi in fifty years,” Johnny slings his arm over her shoulder while she calls her bike. 

She rolls her eyes and definitely, _definitely_ doesn’t think it feels nice to have him touch her like that and she decides that she doesn’t enjoy his body heat in any way. No. Nope. Because if she thinks that he'll hear her think it or he'll feel her feel it and he will never let her live it down. 

“I’m serious,” he says, “think I heard his little heart crack to pieces.”  
  
“Well now I feel bad,” V looks up at him. They haven’t been so close in a long time, she can see the faint dark circles under his eyes and a little scar on his cheek, just above his beard.

“Don’t,” he holds up his finger, “you’ve got principles and that is by far the hottest thing about you.”

An honest to god compliment - he must be in a good mood. 

“Thank you,” she says and opens the door to her car when it arrives. 

“That and your killer tits, of course,” Johnny has to add. 

“Of course,” V rolls her eyes again and slips into the driver’s seat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Johnny, you old charmer.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who commented or dropped kudos on the first chapter, super encouraging. <3


	3. Like, EVERY Level

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit content ahead, fair warning.  
> (Do you like my little joke with the chapter title?)
> 
> *Also, TW for in-canon suicide*

So, Johnny has started flirting with her. 

She could’ve just brushed it off the first couple of times and chalked it up purely to the fact that he enjoyed watching her shoot River down, but no, it keeps happening. Maybe it's just his new favourite way of messing with her - regardless, if she were the type of woman to get flustered, she might get flustered. 

He rarely does it in her own head, either, he usually makes sure he’s in his own body so he can look at her over his sunglasses when he says something either vaguely flirty or just straight-up filthy.

Wherever it comes from, she isn’t totally sure how she feels about it. 

“Please, like I haven’t noticed you eyeing me up, too,” he sometimes has a way of appearing in just the right position to make her jump out of her skin. Especially annoying when she’s trying to sneak through a Valentino garage to klep one of their cars and he pops up right in her line of vision. 

“Fuck me, Johnny,” she curses and tries to talk to him in her head even though she’s getting increasingly used to doing it the normal way. She ducks behind a stack of boxes, hearing footsteps down the dim hallway. V knows the keys are in the office at the very end of the hall, if she’s quiet about it she can-

“Love to. But don’t change the subject,” he’s leaning against the wall smoking without a care in the world while she keeps her head low so it doesn't get blown off by some pissed off gangsters.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about - fuck off and let me concentrate,” she takes her knife from her boot and walks on quiet feet down the hall. There’s a staircase to her right, that’s where she thinks she heard the voices, but there’s no one in sight.

The office door is locked. Fuck. She tucks the knife away, they all seem to be upstairs.

_“Don’t know what you’re talking about_ , she says, like I don’t literally live in her fuckin’ head,” Johnny’s enjoying this, dripping with pure smug bastard energy. She doesn’t even spare him a scowl when she takes a bobby pin from her hair and gets to picking the old fashioned lock. 

Okay, so, he’s attractive. She’d always thought so when she was a teenager watching Samurai videos and it’s no different now she’s seen him up close. 

At first, the fuckery of the situation had made all that pretty unimportant, and he hadn’t been so hot to her when he’d smashed her head into that window and spent their first two weeks together talking shit. 

Now they’ve settled in together a little, yeah, it’s getting more noticeable that Johnny is kind of hot. Kind of very hot. It’s worse because it’s like he gets more real every day, she swears she can smell his cigarettes sometimes. Much easier to think he looks good when he actually feels like a real person. 

“Thanks, appreciate it,” Johnny leans against the wall beside where she’s working.

“Oh shut up, you didn’t hear what I was thinking,” the lock opens and she ducks inside the cramped mess of an office.

“Nah, just knew you were thinking about me - the fact that you’re being defensive about it suggests you were thinking something good, though.”

Winding her up might be his absolute favourite pastime, she’s come to notice.

“You’re right, Johnny. In between trying not to get clipped and dumped in a trashcan by some pissed off Valentino, I just couldn’t help but think about how gorgeous you are, a king, my perfect type.” 

The computer might give her a clue as to where the keys are since they’re nowhere in sight. Johnny sitting on the desk looking thoroughly amused and relaxed is not helping. 

“Course not, your type is that Aldecaldo fuck, right? Taller than you, dark hair, couple of tats, strong enough to manhandle you… Sounds familiar.”

When she does look at him, he’s actually smirking, leaning back on the desk with his knees apart like he owns the place, as always. She can feel he’s even happier that he seems to have actually caught her attention enough to frown at him. 

“Please don’t tell me your narcissism has convinced you I fucked Saul because he reminds me of _you_ ,” the keys are in the desk drawer but she’s half-forgotten what she’s supposed to be doing. 

Johnny shrugs, “Maybe not consciously, but the subconscious is a funny thing, V.”

V snorts and shakes her head - but her cheeks feel fucking warm, like she’s a teenager, and she can’t even tell herself to get it the fuck together because he’ll hear it. 

She grabs the keys from the drawer.

“Might let you take over sometime just to get you to a fuckin’ shrink - don’t know how you ever even walked around with an ego like that weighin’ you down,” she peaks out of the office.

“Only thing weighing me down was-”

“Your massive cock, yeah, good one.”

Despite the distractions, the rest of the job goes off without a hitch. Sure, the fender gets a little fucked up when she crashes through the main gate rather than fuck around getting it open, but she gets out without a shot fired before they even notice the car is gone.

It’s a nice one, too, shame to give it up, but Wakako Okada is a scary bitch and one of the last people in this city she would try to stiff. 

“Mind me asking what it’s for? Seems a little bland for the Tyger Claws, you guys are usually a little more colourful,” V puts the keys down on the old lady’s desk after hiding the whip around back.

“A gift for my son, after a paint job,” Wakako says.

Jesus, she could’ve got her head blown off over a birthday present. She’d start regretting her career choices if Wakako didn’t immediately transfer a mouthwatering amount of eddies into her account. 

Her phone buzzes with a text on her way out. She’s popular today, apparently. 

It’s Takemura. For a second, her stomach sinks. She’s not ready to meet Hanako, not even close. She’s successfully avoided thinking about it at all for a couple of weeks now.

**_Tokyo Garden. Good?_ **

She smiles to herself a little. The search for decent grub goes on, she guesses. He’s probably the first snob she’s ever met that she’s actually kind of endeared by.

“Ugh,” Johnny chimes in her head as she leans against a wall to stop and text.

**Not bad, but that’s my uncultured nomad tastebuds talking.**

**_…_ **

**_I will take this suggestion and get back to you._ **

V is about to put her phone away when it buzzes again.

**_V._ **

**Yeah?**

**_I hope you are feeling healthy._ **

Oh, she hadn’t expected that. It’s kind of nice that he thinks to ask. 

**Thanks, Goro. I’m feeling a lot better lately, actually.**

**_…_ **

**_That is good. Please rest, I know you keep yourself too busy._ **

“Jesus, what the fuck does this guy care?” Johnny leans across from her against the wall. 

“Really throws you off when people are actually kind, doesn’t it?” 

“Yeah, the nice corpo, as if they fuckin’ exist.”

V texts Takemura back. 

**_I’ve been resting lately, promise. Take it easy yourself._ **

**I will be in touch soon. Goodbye.**

“Remember me sayin’ I respect you for having principles? I take it the fuck back,” Johnny pushes off the wall with his foot and follows her down the street. 

“Being friendly with one ex-corpo is not me losing my principles, dick. The guy saved my life,” she rolls her eyes and gets her bearings. Home isn't far, she’ll just walk. 

“For his own benefit.”

“And now he’s trying to help me save my life again, so I’m not gonna be shitty with him,” V finds some cash in her pocket for the homeless guy on the corner before crossing the street, “walking around being a dick to everyone doesn’t serve. You not figured that out yet?”

“Tryin’ to save his own neck and his own job. He’d gladly turn on you in a second if he had to,” Johnny grumbles, unconvinced. 

“Go ahead and think that,” V’s glad she’s nearly home, he’s switched into combative mode.

“Pfft, you disagree? Think everyone is just so charmed by you they’ll fall on their sword on your behalf?”

“Oh, fuck off,” she goes up the stairs to her building. He always gets fucking personal when he wants to win a fight. 

By the time she’s in the elevator, he’s gone, and she lets out a breath of relief. Peace only lasts a moment though, her phone rings. God, she’s just going to throw it into the ocean one day. 

“V, it’s Dino, feel like kleppin’ a boat for me?”

** ** ** 

Many hours later, Johnny gets jarred from sleep when V does. That fuckin’ phone, he’s gonna smash it the next time she isn’t attached to it. He stays in her head - if she’s got any sense she’ll hang up and go the hell back to sleep. 

“Judy?” She murmurs, confused, “Time is it?” 

V squints over at the glowing clock at the end of her bed. 3am. The girl must be after some pussy. 

“V… Can you come over stat?” Her voice is wobbling. Drunk? Johnny can’t really tell. 

“Really? It’s like 3am, Judy,” she rubs her eyes, still lying down. 

“Just come, please.” The tone of her voice seems to spark V more awake. She doesn’t sound right, she sounds like she’s in shock. Johnny knows what V will do before she does it; her friend calls sounding like that, she’s going to rush straight to them.

And she does. She assures Judy she’s on her way and throws on the clothes she has closest to hand. V slips her switchblade into her jacket pocket and puts a pistol on her boot, just in case. 

Johnny keeps quiet when V speeds to the place on her bike. Her heart is hammering, her worry bleeding into him until his own phantom stomach twists too. 

The door is open when she gets there. 

“Bathroom!” Judy’s torn up voice calls. 

The sight they’re met with when V enters is, admittedly, is extremely fucked.

“Oh my fucking god,” V breathes shakily. Johnny gets out of her body, she feels nauseous and he’ll feel it less if he isn’t in there.

Evelyn Parker lies in the empty tub, wrists cut, lips blue. Even if she weren’t so clearly dead the amount of blood confirms it; there’s a lot people can live through now, but Johnny’s seen people die in battles with less blood loss than that. 

V looks pale, she kneels down next to the tub and looks at Evelyn’s face. Jesus, she’d fucking saved her life, gone through all that for the girl to do this?

“Bird offs herself to express her undying gratitude to you for saving her ass,” he says. 

“Fuck off Johnny,” V hisses out loud and shit, she means it, he can feel the stab of how angry she is right in his chest.

Judy is too out of it to notice, fingers trembling and absolutely no colour in her makeup-streaked cheeks. 

“Can you carry her to the bed?” Judy asks V.

“As if that’ll change anything,” Johnny says. V ignores him and does as she’s asked.

Thing is, she really doesn’t want to. Their emotions aren’t as bound together as they are when he’s in her head but he can tell just from the look on her face. She blinks hard and nods before she bends down to pick up Evelyn’s limp body. 

Seriously, fuck Judy for this. Everyone just assumes V is fine with all this shit, that she’s the one to call when you’ve got a bloody mess to deal with, like she’s not even a person at all. Didn’t even warn her what she was going to walk into. 

V's paler than he’s ever seen her. Johnny doesn’t totally get it, she sees death all the time. All he knows is she’s shaken. Judy’s arguing on the phone with the cops to send a coroner, but V is barely hearing it, just static in her ears. 

She’s gentle when she moves Evelyn’s hand onto the bed beside her so it isn’t hanging off. 

“Psh. Told me to keep her on ice until tomorrow, can you believe the balls?” 

“Fuckin’ badges,” V tries to ground herself, looking away from Evelyn to Judy, “useless.” 

“Yeah,” Judy sits on the bed and looks at Evelyn, “fuckers.”

A quiet passes between them - Johnny watches from the doorway. V doesn’t know what to say; she swallows, throat dry, a little nausea turning her stomach. 

“Judy, I… I’m really sorry, this is…” 

“Fucked up? Yeah, and you didn’t need to be dragged into it,” Johnny says but she ignores him again. 

“I know,” Judy says and lays her hand on top of V’s when she touches her shoulder, “gonna put something on her. Rather she look like a person than a body... Can you wait outside?”

V nods and leaves Judy in privacy, brushing by Johnny like he’s not even there and closing the door behind her. She beelines for the window and leans half out of it, taking in a big lungful of air. 

“V…” Johnny phases in behind of her. 

“I’m fine,” she snips, reaching in her pocket for her cigarettes when she turns around. He’s never seen her fingers tremble like that. 

“You’re shaking,” he points out. Fuck, now _he’s_ a little worried, and it's not about Judy. 

“Just fuck off,” she snaps, looking him dead in the eye. 

He’s pissed her off, royally. He does as she asks and fucks off. 

The coroner arrives pretty quickly to take Evelyn’s body away, leaving just a big bloody patch behind on the mattress. 

Judy watches the van drive away from the window and V stands beside her, smoking her third cigarette since she arrived. Bleakness permeates the apartment, but at least Judy isn’t trembling anymore. 

“You’re sure you’re gonna be okay?” V asks when she gets ready to leave. 

“Yeah, I just wanna be alone right now, sorry V.”

V shakes her head. It’s more than fine because V can’t wait to get the fuck out of the place. 

“No it’s-”

Johnny feels it - a wave of nausea comes out of nowhere and she’s lightheaded too. Gonna pass out. Don’t pass out. 

“It’s fine, I’ll check in on you tomorrow, Judy,” she says quickly and squeezes her tight one more time before she leaves. 

The smell of blood seems to be trapped in her nose and she looks down at where it’s embedded behind her nails. She’s almost out and down the stairs when she stumbles on the last step and falls to her hands and knees heavily. 

Miracle she doesn't break her goddamn wrists. 

But there’s no relic malfunction, no warning flashes across her vision and apart from the echo of her feelings, Johnny feels normal. 

So he leaves her body because her heart is racing like hell as well. 

“V,” his voice doesn’t sound right, kind of shaky. 

“Shit,” she curses. Johnny bends down and loops his arm around her waist to help her to her feet. Thank fuck no one is around to see her leaning against someone who isn’t there. 

“Call Delamain,” he tells her, voice firm. She’s not getting on her bike in this state. But she doesn’t, she’s just standing in the door of Judy’s building with this far off look on her face.

“V, for fuck’s sake,” Johnny puts his hands on the sides of her face and makes her look at him properly, _“call Delamain.”_

After a moment, she nods and does as he says. 

She seems to get it together a little in the car, but she doesn’t talk to him, just stares out of the window. 

As soon as they’re back in her apartment he notices her breaths are coming out shaky, and he can practically feel her pulse thudding in his own neck. 

“Drink some water.” He says, frustrated as hell he can’t just fucking hand it to her himself. 

V does as she’s told for once and downs a whole bottle from her fridge before rushing to the bathroom to wash the blood off her arms. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she curses, noticing it’s on her jacket too. 

Johnny watches from the doorway when she strips it off and dumps it on the floor. There's a frantic air about her. 

“What’s going on?” He asks her, because she’s starting to freak him out. 

“I don’t know.” She snaps, going into her living area and pacing up and down as if trying to work energy off; then she sits down abruptly and scrubs her hands through her hair. Jesus, she’s cracked. 

“Well whatever it is, get a hold of yourself, you’re gonna give us a fuckin’ heart attack,” Johnny says and regrets immediately because she looks at him with some of the purest fire in her eyes he’s ever seen.

V stands up and shoves him hard, hard enough that he stumbles back, almost falling over the coffee table. 

“The fuck?” His temper is up immediately. 

“Judy’s best friend just killed herself ‘cause she got fuckin’ tortured so bad she couldn’t live with it,” he can practically see the anger burning off her in bright red, “and you chose to be a snotty bastard about it? Jesus, I didn’t think you could still surprise me.”

She storms by like she can’t even look at him. 

“You hardly knew the chick,” Johnny snaps back, on the defensive, “you see blood and death all the time and _this_ has got you trembling like a leaf?”

“If you don’t get why seeing a woman I knew, whose life I saved, dead in a bathtub covered in her own blood is fucking with me then there’s no point me trying to explain it to you,” her pulse is hammering in her neck, he can feel it in his own, “say nothing of how fucked up Judy was over it. God, you are a fuckin’ robot.”

That gets him, feels like a slap. Looks at him in that way everyone he's ever cared about did at some point, he just can't brush it off this time, it's sticking in his chest like a knife. 

Johnny goes to her tentatively, thinking she might actually clock him if he gets too close. No, she’s not done dressing him down yet. 

“You also forget the fact that I know exactly how the fuck it feels to see my best friend dead in front of me? You think maybe, just maybe, I might have been feeling this little thing called empathy when I saw it happen to someone I care about?”

Fuck. 

The battle roars between arguing back and knowing she’s goddamn right. 

He reaches over to catch her wrist when she passes him - just doesn’t want her to walk away from him. 

V snatches it away and he doesn’t try again, aware she might break his hand if he does. 

“Don’t touch me,” she heads for the bathroom, “and wait here, wanna shower on my own for a fuckin’ change.”

Johnny watches the door slide shut behind her and he kicks the coffee table on his way to the couch. Then he just sits there, leg bouncing as he just waits for her to decide if she’s going to talk to him. He hears the water running. 

As the minutes pass, the molten anger burns away from them both; it’s still there, but not as hot, brought down to a simmer.

Shit, shit, fuck.

Of course, she was goddamn upset, and he’d made it worse.

Nasty, sickening guilt gnaws at his stomach and he can feel, somehow, that it’s just his own. This is not a reflection of her emotions; it belongs to him alone and he deserves it. 

No, she’s making him feel guilty, by acting so upset, fuck her.

No. No. 

“Fuck,” Johnny says out loud and runs his hands through his hair. He doesn’t mean that. He does deserve to feel guilty, no point lying to himself about it. Can't even reach for a bottle of tequila to down to get rid of the feeling. 

They had just been starting to get along, too. Shit, he even thought she might kind of be into him. Of course he’d fucked it up, classic fucking Johnny Silverhand, that. 

The shower has stopped running, he can hear her moving around the bathroom and he knows he has to talk to her. 

At the door, he considers just going in, privacy has been dead between them from the jump. She probably wouldn’t like that, though, so he knocks.“What?”

“Can I come in?”

“I guess.”

The door slides open.

V has a towel around her and her wet hair brushed away from her face. It’s actually the first time he’s been at the right angle to see the tattoo in the middle of her shoulder blades; phases of the moon, delicate and small, disappearing into her towel. He’s always appreciated the delicate little pieces of ink she’s had dotted around, as well as basically everything else about how she looks. 

Okay, not what he’s here to do, though. 

“Are you feeling better?” He asks.

“Peachy,” V rubs moisturiser into her face. 

Johnny watches her for a moment, not knowing what to say but sure that he does not want her to be pissed with him anymore. She keeps pretending he’s not there, clearly quite happy to let him squirm. 

“Look, maybe I said the wrong thing back at Judy’s place,” he tries. 

“ _Maybe_ ,” she laughs a bit, “unbelievable.”

“Okay, Jesus. I said the wrong thing, is that what you want?”

V finally looks at him then in the mirror.

“Word you’re looking for is ‘sorry,’ prick,” she moves past him quickly, brushes his front, “but don’t bother, alright? You don’t get why you should be sorry because you’re always right, you’re the greatest, caring about anything is for pussies and ‘sorry’ doesn’t mean anything anyway. Honestly, the nihilism is getting boring now, don’t know why I let it bother me.”

V keeps her back to him and pulls her underwear on under her towel, then drops it to put on that vest she always wears with the yellow smiley and the pills on the front. 

He nearly tells her he’s always been more of an anarchist than a nihilist but he thinks that might be his asshole impulse talking so he keeps his mouth shut.

Then she just lies on her bed and is very quiet. Doesn’t even put the radio on, just stares at the ceiling. What the fuck is he supposed to say now?

He doesn’t have much time to think of anything, because it’s only a few seconds before she huffs and gets off the bed, goes to her wardrobe and pulls out clothes in haphazard handfuls. 

Johnny doesn’t know if he should ask what she’s doing, but keeps his eyes averted (much as he desperately does not fucking want to) as she pulls off the top she just put on and replaces it with a bra. 

There’s the shuffling of clothes for a little bit until he looks at her again. She’s wearing a black dress that is so tight it should be fucking illegal and putting her foot up on her desk chair to zip up the stacked boot that reaches up her calf. 

God, he has never seen her look like that. 

She’s still pretending he’s not there when she disappears into the bathroom and comes out a little later with her hair up, makeup on and smelling like some kind of expensive perfume that makes him want to bury his nose into her neck. 

She looks exactly like the type of girl he would’ve made a beeline for in the bar back in the day. Shit, she looks _way_ hotter than any of those girls.

“Gonna tell me what the fuck you’re doing?” He finally has to ask. 

“Going out, getting wasted, pretending you and this shitty day never happened.” She smiles at him, venom in her eyes. 

Of course, she can’t just leave him there. He gets phased back into her head about the time she’s fast walking down the stairs of her building, just in time to get a good view of her tits bouncing in her dress as she does.

Fuck.

** ** ** 

V starts in the Coyote Bar. Best place to get tipsy and talk to people she knows before bouncing for the next place. That would be the Afterlife, she chats it up with Claire for a while, knocks back a few shots before dipping from there as well. 

By the time she’s in the techno club dancing to music that she would normally hate, her head is swimming and her inhibitions are as dropped as she was hoping they would be. She doesn’t know if Johnny’s being quiet, or if the alcohol is dampening him, but she doesn’t care, he pissed her off and he can shut up and watch her have some fun. She doesn’t want to think about anything: not blood, not violence, not dead friends. 

The music rattles her insides and she gets lost in the hypnotic bass, putting her hands in the air and dancing with anyone that wants to dance with her. The floor turns into a tight crush of bodies, someone at her back, someone at her front, and it’s hot and fun and exactly what she wanted.

She has no idea how long she’s there before she’s swept up by a group of women who laugh and squeal and eventually drag her along to a metal bar that’s so loud she knows for a fact she’ll have a tinnitus hum when she gets back. 

“Band fucking sucks,” V necks back a shot of some mystery liquor, leaning on the bar next to a gorgeous woman with a big blue afro who smiles at her in a way that makes her fingers tingle.

They end up making out in the back, all grabby hands and unabashed moans into each other’s mouths, the place too loud and busy for anyone to remotely care.

Her friends end up coming to get her eventually, and she apologies and leaves a kiss on V’s cheek and on her hand before she leaves.

“Alright,” V makes her way back into the ground, adjusting her lipstick with her finger, “who’s next?”

Things get a little hazy after that. She isn’t exactly sure how she gets there, but she ends up in some underground club filled with Tyger Claws who she somehow talks into letting her right in. The place is definitely shady, for sure, but of course, she’s drunk, so she doesn’t give that much of a fuck. Besides, she’s arguably a pretty shady person herself. 

She ends up playing poker in some backroom where everyone’s armed to the teeth and passing around all different kinds of inhalers. Not to be rude, she takes a little huff on one, which doesn’t do much more than put her in an even better mood and make her feel kind of horned up. 

“I’m all outta cash, chooms,” she has no idea how she gets any words out without slurring, “good time, though.”

“Wouldn’t mind the chance to win some time alone with you, if you’re willing to put it on the table,” one of the guys who, she has to admit, she had been eyeing up, says to her. He screams Tyger Claw even without the ink but he’s a little more dressed-down than his chooms. Probably knows he’s pretty enough not to have to try so hard. 

She should clock him and tell him to fuck off. She doesn’t.

“Baby, _you_ can get that for free.”

So that’s how she ends up making out with _him_ in some dirty alley off of Jig-Jig street, the faint thud of the clubs and the grunting and moaning from joyhouses all around them. Her head is an absolute fuzz, but she’s turned on and she just wants this guy to keep putting his tongue in her mouth and rubbing his dick against her through his jeans.

He murmurs something in Japanese against her neck and she quivers deliciously when he kisses over the top of her chest and starts to tug down the front of her dress.

That’s as far as that goes, because a second later, she’s swinging for him. 

A hard fist, a perfect arch of a punch collides with his jaw and he falls sideways to the ground.

“Enough of that shit,” comes Johnny’s voice for the first time in hours and there he is, standing in front of her, looking down at the guy on the ground with pure rage rolling off him.

Many things almost shock V back into full sobriety. 

The fact that she had not had any control over her arm when she punched the guy is _definitely_ at the top. 

“What the _fuck_ , Johnny?” Is all she can get out of her mouth, kneeling to check the guy’s pulse. Thank god he’s just unconscious. 

Johnny doesn’t say anything, looking down at his silver arm with about the same amount of surprise she feels right now. 

Suddenly, being drunk feels awful, like she’s going to throw up and pass out or both at the same time. Johnny fuckin’ Silverhand, buzzkill extraordinaire. 

V has just about the motor skills to drag the guy into a doorway and leave him there, he’ll be fine, his chooms will come looking soon enough. 

Besides, the guy is absolutely the last thing she’s worried about as walks home as fast as she can on those tall boots. First thing tomorrow she’s going to have to tell Vik what happened - hell, she’d go tonight if she were goddamn sober enough.

She clenches her fist, even more pissed off with Johnny than she was earlier. 

Johnny reappears when she’s back in the apartment and she shoves him very hard for the second time that day.

“What the fuck? You had control over my body? You made me deck that guy?” She yells.

“Didn’t know I could, just had the urge and it happened,” he waves his hand like she’s freaking out over nothing, which only riles her up more. 

“What gave you the urge, huh? Just determined to ruin my night?” 

V gets a bottle of water out of the fridge and chugs it, head swimming. She also knocks back a pill to speed up her body metabolising the alcohol, which she can feel the effects of immediately. Not how she wanted the night to end. 

“Clearly you needed someone to stop you doing something stupid, like fucking a stranger in public,” he looks mad too.

“Oh, I’m sorry your majesty,” she bows, “thought I was talking to rockstar Johnny Silverhand, there, you know, the walking talking gonorrhoea warning pamphlet?”

“Fuckin’ bitch,” he spits.

“Fuck you, this is the second time you’ve gotten all shitty with me over some casual sex,” her heart is goddamn thundering she’s so worked up, “might start thinkin’ you're jealous.”

“Jealous?”

They meet eyes and she realises she’s enjoying getting to him as much as he’s getting to her. Jealous sounds about right, actually, he’s made no secret of thinking she’s hot, he’s made no secret of hating any guy she ever talks to. 

“No, not doin’ this. I don’t argue with drunk chicks,” he crosses his arms. 

“You don’t feel it? I’m sobering right up now,” she cannot stop herself, “first time you’ve actually been able to take over a part of my body. Something must have been making you _real_ mad.” 

She’s _seriously_ riling him up now, she can feel it.

“Expect me to sit and watch you fuck some wannabe gangster with our body?”

Oh, no way. 

She’s struck quiet for just a second and she wonders if they’re actually about to start physically fighting. He’s strong but she’s taken stronger. 

“It’s _my_ body,” her voice is icy.

Johnny crosses the room to stand right in front of her, staring her down. As if that would ever be enough to make her back off. 

“Not anymore, sweetheart. Your arms, your legs, your mouth and your fuckin’ pussy are all half mine." 

“Think that all you want but it’s not true and it never will be,” V tips her chin up and looks him dead in the eye, “I wanna go out and fuck half this town, I will. I wanna call up Saul again, go for another ride? I’m gonna. Hell, if I drop a text to River he’ll be here in five minutes flat and I guaran-fuckin’-tee no part of my body will feel like it belongs to _you_.” 

Johnny, of course never the one to back off either, steps even closer until she has no choice but to step back, crowded against the window. 

“You’re gonna fuck that pig, huh? Do it… Never seen anyone less capable of making you cum,” his voice is pure gravel, it gets her right in the gut. 

“You’ve got no fucking idea what I like,” she shakes her head and realises Johnny isn’t looking her in the eye anymore, he’s watching her lips move. 

“I know everything about you,” he says it low and quiet, rests his metal hand on the window next to her head and leans down.

V’s not pissed off, or, the pissed off-ness is melting into something else. Maybe it’s his voice, his proximity, maybe it’s just that this is always where it was going to go.

All she knows is she’s suddenly extremely turned on and she has no idea if it’s all her, or all him, or half of both. 

She digs her fingers into the front of his vest, he feels her nails against his stomach and she knows he does because she kind of feels the tingle too. 

Then she pushes him again, makes him step back. 

“You don’t know shit about me,” she is fucking burning, “least of all what gets me wet, fucker.”

There’s enough room for her to move away from him now, but she doesn’t, because they both go in for the kiss at exactly the same time, a clash that pulls them together like opposite poles. Johnny’s hands immediately grab her ass and he pulls her body against his as tight as possible, pushing his tongue into her mouth and tasting hers. 

She’s dizzy again, totally dizzy and her body feels like it’s vibrating with the intensity of what it feels like to have his hands and his mouth on her, to actually push her fingers in his soft hair and feel him shiver when her nails brush his scalp. 

Johnny kisses like she would have imagined, wet and hot and insistent, like he’s trying to kiss away the memory of anyone that has ever had their mouth on hers. 

Immediately, he’s hard, she can feel it pressing against her through his leather pants and she moans at the feeling of it and at just how much he wants her. 

“You’re fuckin’ soaked, aren’t you?” Johnny’s voice is rough when he pulls back from her mouth to kiss down her neck, sucking on her throat a little, “- hard as a rock so I know you’re fuckin’ aching for me.” 

“Mm, Johnny,” she moans and presses her hips up against him when he pulls down the front of her dress and takes the cups of her bra with it. 

“Jesus, fuck,” he curses, openly looking at her. 

Her face burns and she pulses between the legs. It’s ridiculous, he must’ve seen her breasts so many times but he looks at them like it’s the first time and it’s so hot she’s glad for the cool glass at her back.

This has escalated so fast - she'd been ready to punch him out a couple of minutes ago and now all she can think about his wrapping her body around him and feeling him properly, finally. 

“Was never kidding, you know? Best pair of tits I ever saw,” and he buries his face between them and licks and sucks kisses to the skin there until her head falls back in a whimpered moan. His beard burns a little but it’s nothing on the pleasure of when he licks her nipple and sucks it into her mouth, sounding like he’s enjoying it as much as she is.

It’s too much, it’s too much. The ache between her legs becomes almost painful. She doesn’t think she’s ever wanted to have someone’s cock in her so much.

“Fuck, say that out loud,” Johnny breathes hard when he comes back up to look at her face, holding her jaw surprisingly gently in his organic hand.

V’s breath shakes and she undulates her hips against his clothed hard-on, needing some kind of friction.

“Never wanted someone’s cock in me so much,” she obliges, hearing how gone she sound already, and then Johnny’s tongue is in her mouth again and he’s putting his hand up the back of her dress to grab her ass through the lace of her underwear. 

He’s panting when he pulls back and she is too. Johnny looks at her for a moment and something passes between them when they meet eyes. She doesn’t know what it is - an emotion, a thought - all she knows is whatever’s going on is more intense than anything she’s ever felt and he feels it too. 

The skin of his fingers is softer than she’d thought it would be when they run over her cheek and his thumb ghosts her bottom lip enough to make it tingle. He dips it into her mouth and she licks the tip of it. He likes that, she can _feel_ him like it in every way. 

“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” he says before he turns her around and pulls her hips back against him. She gasps at the gold glass against her nipples when he grinds his hard cock up against her ass and presses his chest against her back. 

That’s all the teasing the both of them can handle. 

Johnny’s belt drops to the floor with a clunk and she shivers at just the sound of his zipper going down. He tugs her dress up around her waist and enjoys a squeeze of her ass before he pulls her underwear down over her boots and she kicks them aside.

“Look fuckin’ good like this, V,” he holds her hips and she knows she’s quivering with anticipation.

The head of his cock brushes her lips and her arms shake where they’re holding her up against the windowsill. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she’s glad the glass is one way, but all thought is completely knocked out of her when Johnny pushes his cock all the way inside and yeah, it’s fucking big.

“Oh my god, Johnny,” she whimpers, feeling so intensely filled it’s hard to breathe. 

“Like that?” He moves halfway out of her and pushes back in, bottoming out until her walls twitch and her eyes slip shut with the intense pleasure of it.

“Yeah, yes,” she reaches back blindly to find his metal hand on her ass and squeeze his fingers, “fuck me, fuck me, Johnny.”

So he does as he’s told for once and fucks her. She can’t remember ever getting so lost in absolute pleasure as she does when he picks up a quick rhythm that has her moaning and cursing like the most preem braindance around. If she even had the presence of mind to be embarrassed, she wouldn’t be, because Johnny is not quiet about voicing his enjoyment either. 

“Fuckin’ knew you’d have a perfect fuckin’ pussy, fuck,” his metal hand slips up around her and finds her breast, squeezing it just the right amount of hard as he fucks her. V can only moan in delight, wishing he would just talk and talk and talk because it turns out nothing makes her wetter than hearing him curse right in her ear like that.

He leans closer over her so his strong chest is against her back and she turns her head and kisses him, wet and a little sloppy. They pull back to breathe, then just nose to nose, moaning and gasping against each other’s mouths, lips and tongues touching with the force of his movements. 

“You’re so good,” she gasps because he likes to hear it and she knows that because she can feel it, because they’re linked like no two people on the planet ever have been, because they share a body, _because no one will ever know him like she does and no one will ever know her like him._

“Ah, Christ,” Johnny buries his face into her shoulder, “fuck, gonna cum.”

“Me too,” she can feel it building in her, in them both; she grabs his organic wrist and drags his hand down between her legs. He doesn’t need more of a hint, his fingers play with her clit just right, exactly how she likes it, and she practically squeals and fucks him back as best she can from that angle.

So close, so fucking close.

“I don’t want to have to see you fuck someone again,” he admits, a murmur against her neck, not letting up the quick movement of his hips for a second “your choice, won’t try to stop you - _ah, fuck_ \- but it fuckin’ kills me to watch someone else be inside you.” 

“Okay, Johnny,” she’s teetering on the edge; his words make her heart clench and she feels even warmer than she did before. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She gasps out, overwhelmed by it all, wishing she had something to cling to other than the windowsill. 

As if knowing exactly what will finish her, Johnny pulls all the way out and pushes back in so his cock hits that spot inside her, then he stays there, filling her all the way up, and works her clit in quick movements that actually have her vision blurring.

“Shit, Johnny, god, ahh,” her forehead touches the cold glass of the window and he groans loudly as the pleasure of it gets to him too. 

The pressure breaks when he thrusts his hips again and she cums harder than she ever has before. He holds her tight around the middle when her body spasms and her gasps turn to whimpers. Maybe she says his name, maybe she's praying, she has no idea what sounds are coming out of her mouth anymore, completely overtaken by pleasure from head to toe.

She clenches and unclenches around the thick cock inside of her and feels the flood of wetness cover it. He doesn’t stop rubbing her clit, working her to intense hypersensitivity until the pleasure overtakes him too and he cums deep inside of her with a series of rough grunts. 

“Ahh,” he groans, his lips press against the side of her jaw, “fuck, V-”

God, she has never wished she could see someone’s face more than she does at that moment. Bets he looks fucking beautiful. 

As he fills her with it, he pulls her against his body with both arms so tight that she feels like she could melt into his skin; he stays bottomed out, thrusting erratically through the clench of mutual aftershocks that feel like they’re never going to stop. 

For a moment, her mind is nothing but a fuzzy haze; Johnny keeps his face into her shoulder, getting his breath back, waiting for his cock to stop twitching before he pulls it out. V can’t move, so if he’s watching his cum leak out of her, she has no way of knowing. 

Jesus Christ, how does he even _have_ cum?

“The fuck does that matter right now?” Johnny practically stumbles back until his knees hit the bed and he falls back on the mattress. 

V stands up straight on shaky legs, a quiver in her fingers, but a good one, her body humming with satisfaction like it never has. 

Her mind is basically TV static when she takes off the remnants of her clothes with trembling fingers and leaves them on the floor, throwing on a t-shirt before falling onto the bed with him. Jesus, even the material against her skin makes it tingle. She feels like a raw nerve.

Like a reflex, she finds a pack of cigarettes on her shelf and lights one up. 

They're quiet for a while, taking deep breaths and both aware of how much the other is tingling and twitching from it still.

“How and why did we just fuckin’ do that?” She says eventually, no idea how to get her head around what just happened.

“The how I’ll leave to the professionals,” Johnny tucks his dick back into his pants, “the why is that we’ve had a lot of tension building up and finally found the best solution.”

“Yeah,” she looks up at the ceiling, body totally relaxed, mind kind of reeling.

“Look, it was just fucking, okay? Don’t overthink it,” Johnny looks at her. 

Trying not to overthink it might be the best solution she has, actually, since the moral or existential implications that come out of fucking the engram that is gradually overwriting her psyche and eventually killing her are not something she thinks she can handle. 

“Can feel you overthinking it still, V,” Johnny says.

“You’re right,” V sighs and takes a drag of her cigarette, “just confirm one thing for me, though, alright?”

“Yeah?”

She sighs, “That was like fuckin’... Insanely preem, wasn’t it?”

Johnny smirks, “V, we should win awards for how fuckin’ preem that was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....... So?


	4. Shaman 2077

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one!  
> Sexual content ahead.

The ‘waking up hungover and regretting who she fucked the night before’ routine doesn’t even get a chance to kick in gear the next morning. Her phone ringing wakes her up, the tone is now familiar to the point she never wants to hear it again. 

Her head hammers as soon as she sits up and answers - all that alcohol hasn’t completely flushed out yet, then. At least she can do the hangover part. 

“Yeah?” Jesus, her breath is awful. 

“V, this is Anders Hellman,” the last voice she expects to hear on the other end of the line is that slippery German bastard. 

“Hellman… Why are _you_ calling me?” She pushes back the sheets and gets up, walking on slightly wobbly knees to her mini-fridge and taking out a can of iced coffee. Her dress still lies in a heap on the floor. 

“I shouldn’t be. I am back with Arasaka but this is a secure line for us to speak privately on,” he says, “we do not have a lot of time.”

“Back with Arasaka? Yeesh, must have you by the balls after tryin’ to run off,”' she takes a hangover pill in the bathroom, washes it down with the coffee and checks her reflection. 

She looks like shit, as assumed, makeup smudged around her eyes, pale as all hell. There’s a little rash on the side of her neck too - it takes her a moment to realise it’s from Johnny’s beard rubbing there. A souvenir, great. 

“You could say that,” he sighs, “as I said, we don’t have much time. I am calling you because I have thought of someone that might be able to help you. ‘ _Might_ ’ is the operative word here, I do not wish to give you false hope, but I thought I would offer you the information.”

Admittedly, that gets her attention, much as chasing leads is starting to feel fruitless. 

“And you’ll offer me this information in exchange for…”

“Nothing. Only - ” Hellman clears his throat, “I have been thinking about the fact that you are dying because of my technology, it - it doesn’t sit well with me, foolish as I think you were for putting a strange object in your port.”

Technically, Jackie had put it in her port. She can thank him for that when she sees him in the real afterlife. 

And, fuck, Hellman actually sounds kind of regretful. Not something she expected from him. A corpo scientist with a conscience - he should study _himself_ as a medical marvel. 

“A doctor I once knew quite well, we trained together, you see, only he took an alternative path from entering the corporate world. He is not a ripper, you understand, he is far more educated than any of those back-alley butchers - he was the first person I ever discussed my ideas for engram technology with.”

V downs the rest of the coffee, “What are my chances with him, you think?”

“Oh, he will talk to you, the man will find you fascinating. The chances he can actually help you are as slim as ever, though, but they do exist. In any case, I thought I would let you know.” 

Good thing her and Takemura didn’t kill the guy - not so much of a dick after all. 

“Well, shit, thanks,” she turns on the shower to let it get hot, “Is he in Night City?”

“Near Phoenix, Arizona. I believe that is quite close. I can send you his address from an encrypted email.”

“Day’s drive, not so bad… Think I can drop in on him today?”

“I can’t see why not. Fair warning he is… Odd, eccentric,” Hellman says.

“You might have noticed my life is pretty odd at the moment. I’m sure I can handle it,” she drops the can in the trash and goes back to the bathroom. 

Should probably say something to Hellman, given he’s putting his neck on the line for her. Engage some manners, maybe. 

“Hey, thanks, Hellman. Seriously.” She rubs the back of her neck. 

“You are welcome,” he sounds as uncomfortable as she feels, “we will not speak again.”

V hangs up and strips off her t-shirt, desperate to wash the stink of the night before off of her, feeling like alcohol is sweating from her pores.

“I just hear you thank the guy for trying to lead you into a trap?” Johnny sits on the closed toilet seat when she steps under the spray of the shower, totally unfazed.

Fuck privacy, right? V doesn’t even have the energy to protest, especially not after the way they saw each other last night. 

“Didn’t get the impression he was lyin’,” she keeps her back to him and stands under the spray, letting the hot water relax her muscles and wet her hair. 

“Oh, right, your excellent level of perception.”

“You’re being sarcastic,” she squirts shampoo into her hands and massages it into her hair, “but I am actually pretty good at reading people, asshole.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then I don’t have to keep waitin’ around to die for much longer, do I? Quick Arasaka bullet to the head, not so bad,” she smirks over her shoulder at him but he’s not smiling, sunglasses on and leaning against the back of the toilet like it’s his throne, “look, I get the impression he’s being honest. If he’s not, we’ll delta the fuck out of there, done it enough times by now.”

“Whatever you say,” Johnny doesn’t sound convinced; she tries to pretend he isn’t there, although she still isn’t quite used to washing her pits and between her legs with another set of eyes on her. 

Her mind drifts after a moment, thinking more of what snacks she’s going to get for the road. Then, she feels a little pulse between her legs and realises she’s getting turned on, which is fucking weird out of nowhere.

Not out of nowhere, though, of course.

“For fuck’s sake, Johnny,” she rolls her eyes, “if you’re gonna sit there getting a boner can you just fuck off?”

“Fine, touchy,” he sounds amused, but goes, and she makes a point to keep her eyes to the tile until she’s out of the shower with a towel around her. 

Neither of them mentions last night. Not when she goes to the store to stock up on soda and junk food and not when they’re about 10 miles down the highway. Johnny just argues with her about her choice of music until she agrees to put on a tape he likes. 

Apart from that, they’re uncharacteristically quiet with each other, him looking out the window as the desert rolls by with his feet up on the dash. 

“If you want, I’ll bring up the fact that we fucked last night, break the ice,” Johnny says.

“Ice broken, thank you,” V rolls her eyes. Not mentioning it would have been preferable, fuckin’ weird as it is. 

“Not that you were doing a very good job of not thinking about it, that is,” he looks so pleased with himself the air practically shifts with his ego. 

“I fucked a personality construct that is living on a chip in my head and eating my brain. You don’t even have a real body and yet I’ve got beard rash on my neck and probably your little swimmers inside me still. So, yeah, hard to ignore.”

“Two things for the record: One, I seriously doubt my swimmers actually work in this form. Two, _I_ fucked _you_ ,” he takes off his sunglasses and drops them in a cupholder. 

“That an important distinction?” V lights up a cigarette, fingers itching with the need for it. The air that comes in when she opens the window is hot, dry, since all the land around the road is just baking, flat California desert. 

“You know it is,” he smirks a little, “not that you didn’t put your hips into it, I’ll give you that.” 

“Oh, thank you, glad to know I wasn’t just some limp joytoy,” snotty as they’re being with each other, she has to admit it does make it easier to just address that it happened.

“Fuck no, most I’ve felt real in 50 years, V,” he says and there’s something about his tone, almost sincere, that strikes her, “don’t know how it works, don’t know how it can all feel so real while it’s not.”

“Neither do I,” V sighs and shakes her head, taking a drag, “I guess when netrunners get deep into the net they say things can feel real. Shit felt real when I was in there with the Voodoo Boys. Could practically smell Brigitte’s perfume.”

“This ain’t the net though.”

“Sayin’ when I was in there... My body is just in a tub of ice, right? But my net body, or whatever, felt real. Maybe it can happen the other way around.” The whole thing still gives her a headache. 

“Enough for us to fuck, though?”

V laughs, looking over at his raised eyebrow. 

“I don’t know. Maybe it was all in my head, our heads. All just really, really vivid mutual imagination.”

“Mutual i-masturbation? Never managed to get my imagination to grip my cock like a vice before,” he lights up a cigarette of his own, enjoying the real nicotine of hers. 

“Jesus, you’re gross,” she can’t help but snicker a little, though. His mouth. 

God, now her mind is on it… It was _good_. Like, definitely the best it’s ever felt and she's had plenty of satisfying sex before. She watches the road ahead but her eyes are a bit glazed when she remembers how it felt to have him pressed all the way in her and his fingertips on her clit. 

“Turnin’ yourself on thinking about it?”

Sharing a mind with a guy she banged. Tricky. 

“Not on purpose,” no point denying it. She flicks the cigarette butt out of the window and rolls it up. 

“Same effect,” Johnny shuffles in his seat because of course, he’s feeling what she is. 

The energy in the car changes then, both knowing for the fact that the other is getting worked up, both seeing images of what happened last night. 

“Could do it again, you know?” Johnny’s voice is gravel, she’s aware, in her peripheral vision, of him looking her up and down. 

“Thought it was like a heat of the moment thing,” she wishes she could press her thighs together without him seeing. The shittiness of her air conditioning has never been more apparent than right now.

“Happened in the heat of the moment, sure, but I’ve been wanting to fuck you since day one,” he says it so simply, like it’s obvious, and it makes her neck flush. 

“Bullshit,” she tries to brush it off. 

“Believe that,” Johnny shrugs. 

“I would’ve felt it.”

“My feelings don’t flow the same to you as yours do to me, remember? You’ve still got most of the brain, thank Christ.”

V looks over at him, looking out of the window casual as all hell and leaning all the way back. 

“Since day one?” 

“Please, V, as if I’m immune to hot blonde chicks with insane marksmanship skills,” Johnny says, “took you long enough to get the hots for me in return, by the way. Was about to start thinking I’d got ugly over time.”

V snorts at that, “Had other things on my mind.”

That’s the truth, too. It had taken weeks to stop being too overwhelmed and freaked out with the situation to even register him as a man. 

“Yeah, me.”

“Okay, wrong words,” she sighs at the dumb joke, “was too busy facing down death to think about what you looked like or who you were.”

“Who I was? You saying you had to keep your Samurai fangirl freakout in check?”

“I wouldn’t use those words, but it did compound the craziness of the situation that I literally used to have posters of you on the wall,” she admits, amused at the thought, now. Teenage her would not even remotely believe this. 

“Kiss ‘em before bed at night?”

“Yeah, but the lipstick marks were all on Kerry, sorry.” 

“Fuckin’ Kerry?” His teasing tone drops to actual incredulity and it makes her have to fight laughter.

“He was beautiful, still is so the screamsheets say,” it’s nice to wind him up for a change. 

“Well, you’re not his type,” Johnny crosses his arms.

“I know he’s gay. What kind of Samurai fangirl would I be if I didn’t?” She’ll go ahead and humor that description. “Still beautiful.”

“Can’t believe I’m hearin’ this shit,” Johnny pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s getting a headache and she chuckles. 

“Sorry, Johnny. I’ve come round to you now, though,” she taps his thigh, enjoying sticking a pin in his ego a little. 

“That you sayin’ you do wanna fuck again?” 

Of course, nothing deters Johnny SIlverhand when fucking is on the table. 

“Definitely was not what I was saying.” 

But that feeling is still there, of course, a little buzzing low in her gut and a voice in the back of her head that isn’t even his, it’s hers, and it says ‘it was so fucking good, though.’

“Do you think we should?” She chews her bottom lip and glances at him. 

“Not made my position on that clear? Last night was so good I think we have a moral obligation to fuck again. Not right to keep that kind of fucking away from the universe.”

“First time I’ve heard you get spiritual and it’s about-”

“Your pussy? Yeah, be flattered. Might become an evangelist if I get between those legs again,” he’s working himself up as much as her and the thrum gets more intense. She wants him to touch her badly. 

“Jesus,” she says, trying and failing to cover her own arousal. 

“Pull over,” Johnny looks at her, his eyes burning into the side of her face. She didn’t think he meant now. 

“Johnny. Someone seeing me fuck a man on the side of the road is all fine - fuckin’ the air like a nutjob is too much.”

“Pull behind one of these old gas stations, haven’t seen another car for like an hour,” then his silver hand is on her thigh, warm but firm. When it runs from her knee to her inner thigh, the joints of his fingers catch just a little on the peach fuzz there, making her tingle. 

“Johnny…” Her voice is throaty and the protest isn’t a protest at all. Higher and higher, the hard tips of his fingers tickle her inner thigh until he’s up to the line of her shorts. She parts her knees, just a little, and hears Johnny exhale through his nose. 

“V, if you’re not bouncing on my cock in the next two minutes I’m taking over your body and crashing this fuckin’ car,” his hand covers her crotch then and his middle fingers press against the seam of her shorts, right over her clit. 

“You’re crazy,” her voice is shaking now, almost a whimper. It takes everything not to grind herself against that solid hand. 

“You make me crazy,” she has to keep her eyes on the road but he keeps watching her, definitely sees the flush on her cheeks and the way she bites her lip. 

“Cheesy fuckin’ line, man,” she breathes out a little laugh, but apparently she’s weaker than she ever thought because she does pull over at the next abandoned gas station she sees. The sign is falling off, all the handles have been ripped from the pumps - the place is dirty and dusty and it feels exactly right for what they’re about to do. 

As soon as the engine is off Johnny reaches across the center console to hold her face in his flesh hand and kiss her hard. He doesn’t waste time, dipping his tongue into her mouth and tasting hers. _Can_ he taste it?

“Yes,” Johnny answers the silent question against her lips then kisses her jaw, “only thing in this goddamn world I can taste is you.” He licks her neck and sucks on it, eliciting a moan out of her before she breaks apart from him breathlessly and bales from the car. 

Jesus, it’s fucking hot, hotter still with the way her blood is coursing through her veins. The sun beats down on her skin when she drags her shorts and underwear off over her sneakers and tosses them in the driver’s seat. Johnny isn’t paying attention to her, too busy yanking off his belt and pulling down his pants. 

By the time she’s climbing into his lap his cock is out, hard and resting on his abdomen. She adjusts the seat back for him so he’s leaning back a little more and he grunts in surprise at the motion. 

For a second, she takes the opportunity to get a proper look at it. Thick and long, a patch of dark hair at the base that reaches up to his navel where he’s tugged up his vest. 

“Excited?” The pause has allowed her to get her voice back, at least, not such a whimpering mess. She wraps her hand around him and pumps a couple of times and precum leaks from the head and into her fingers. His metal hand finds her thigh and squeezes it, a groan slipping through his lips. 

He grunts when her fingers play with the head, clearly unable to form full sentences. That makes a nice change. A lesson for the future when he won’t shut the fuck up, maybe. 

She smirks, wraps her hand around him again to jerk him steadily. It’s hard to know what to look at: the hot, leaking cock in her hand or the intense way he watches her touch it with his dark eyes. Johnny is fucking gorgeous, there’s no getting around it. 

He stops the movement of her hand with his metal one and watches her face when he slips his other between the juncture of her thighs and strokes where she’s already painfully aroused, practically dripping. 

“Sit on it already, V,” he eases his finger inside of her for just a moment, just enough to get her to make a little noise. Is that something they have in common, liking vocality? Or has one bled into the other?

“Fuckin’ bossy, aren’t you?” She says and watches his face when she takes his wrist from between her legs and lifts his fingers to her mouth, sucks her own wet off.

“Fffuck,” Johnny can’t hold it back, clearly unable to take his eyes off the circle of her mouth around his fingers. She pulls them out with a pop, blue eyes meet brown ones and she never wants him to stop looking at her like that, like he wants to fucking devour her. 

Hands tug her knees forward until the tip of his cock brushes her, moving satisfyingly smoothly through the slick. 

Then she holds his shoulders and lowers herself, eyes closing, as his cock fills her until she’s seated on his thighs again.

“Hmm,” she hums out a shaky moan - it’s so intense she can hardly breathe. Her fingers seek out the planes of his stomach under his vest. 

She’s about to start moving when it occurs to her that for the countless times he’s seen her naked, she’s never seen him with any item off but his shoes. 

“Wait,” her fingers are trembling when she tugs on the bottom of his vest. 

“Fuck, what?” He grunts impatiently, fingers twitching on her thighs. 

“Take this off,” she pulls it up, suddenly needing to see and feel his skin. 

Another impatient grunt, and there’s urgency in his movements when he holds her steady with one arm and pulls his shirt off awkwardly with the other.

Again, she takes a good look at him while he can. Strong, scarred, pale skin, light muscles, obviously strong without being totally ripped. 

With his cock still inside her, she runs her hands up his stomach, over his nipples, his chest, and enjoys the way he shivers at the light scrape of her nails. He’s coiled up like a spring, but lets her indulge. 

She starts with a grind, keeping him as deep inside her as possible with her hands brace on his shoulders and him gripping her ass tight; vaguely, she’s aware of the hard rock still playing through the speakers, but there’s a fuzz in her ears and she’s tuned mainly into the soft grunting sounds Johnny makes.

V’s fingers feel where the chrome meets his skin in his shoulders, almost totally seamless. 

Her desire to grind and feel pressure on her clit bashes up against his need for her to move, bounce, fuck him, hard, fast, _fuck V just do it._

Then it’s all she wants, too, so she does, she rides him properly, using the muscles of her thighs to feel his cock slipping halfway in, halfway out, eyes screwed shut and holding onto the seat behind him to support herself. 

It’s so good, it’s so fucking good, so much better than anyone else ever has been and ever will be. 

“V-” Johnny groans, “like that, yeah.”

Like he can’t help it, he pushes up her top until it bunches in his hand and tugs her forwards until her back arches and presses her breasts into his face, his beard prickling the sensitive skin there. 

“Ah,” she gasps, pushing her fingers into his inky black hair - it’s so soft, it slips through her fingers like gossamer. Johnny sucks on the inside of her breast before he pulls back to watch them bounce as she picks up the pace again. 

Now, she couldn’t care less if someone sees her. Everyone she’s ever met plus the fucking pope could be standing out there and she would not, could not stop having his cock hit that spot inside her again and again. 

“Johnny,” she can’t help but moan, because he’s everywhere - his grunts and groans fill the car, the smell of the fresh sweat on his skin is in her nose and his forehead pinches in pleasure when he casts his eyes down to watch his cock disappear in her.

She’s chanting, without realising it, “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.”

He groans particularly loudly when he can feel her tighten around him; his organic hand finds the back of her neck and he pulls her forehead to his, his breath blows across her lips. She might be about to cum even harder than last time, and last time had nearly knocked her out. 

“Look at me, V,” he breathes and just the bass of his voice pushes her closer. 

She does as he says, they lock eyes and pant onto each other’s mouths for such an intense moment that she almost can’t handle it. 

Actually, not almost, she _can’t_ handle it. Something about it makes her chest tighten. 

They close when he kisses her, desperate and wet, locking and unlocking lips while her riding doesn’t let up for a second because the wave is cresting and she is single-minded in her need to cum. 

When they part, she cants her hips up a little and her movement turns back into a bounce, the head of his cock hitting that spot again, again, again - she is so close to coming, right there on the edge of it, all she needs is - 

Johnny touches his metal fingers to her clit and works it exactly the way that always pushes her over the edge. It’s a different sensation than flesh, hard and unforgiving, but he’s doing it gently enough that it doesn’t hurt, it’s just perfect. 

“God,” she moans loudly, “oh my god…”

“Feel like nothin’ fuckin’ else, V,” he says, sounding as desperate as she feels, “fffuck.”

Her mouth falls open in something like a yelp when it hits, half a scream caught in her throat when the orgasm wracks through her whole body and she squeezes his cock so tight inside her she never wants him to take it out. 

Johnny holds her down, dirty talking her through it. There are actually stars in her vision, blurring at the edges, and she suddenly remembers what he said last night. ‘Don’t want to see you fuck someone again… fuckin’ kills me to to watch someone else be inside you.’ 

And she’d agreed, and if he said it now, she’d agree again, she’d give him anything he fucking wanted for him to keep doing this. 

She’s trembling, quivering with it when it starts to wear off, opening her bleary eyes and seeing Johnny there.

V swallows deeply, watching him breathing ragged but waiting there patiently for her, still completely rock hard inside of her twitching walls. Not always simultaneous, then. 

“Never seen you look better than when you cum,” he smacks her ass and squeezes it before he guides her to keep moving. 

V puts her hands on his shoulders and picks up a quick pace on him again, whimpering at the feeling of his cock sliding in and almost out of where she’s already hypersensitive.

“Oh, fuck, V,” he groans, “fuck, yeah.” 

His grip hurts but she couldn't care less at that moment, she just needs him to cum, needs him to fill her with it. 

He holds her down when he cums inside her, finishing as deep as possible, pushing against the back of her. She shivers at the sound of his choked groan, the way his eyes screw shut and his hips thrust up like he can’t get in her far enough. Johnny’s head falls back against the headrest and she watches his adam’s apple move in his throat when he grunts out his release. 

“So good,” she kisses his throat then his mouth messily and keeps moving in little wriggles to work every drop of it out of him, “so good to me.”

A little praise to finish it off, to make him shudder one last time. 

They stay like that for a while, foreheads touching as they get their breath back, nose to nose as the aftershocks wear off and his dick stops pulsing inside her. 

His grip softens and he lifts his organic hand to tuck some hair behind her ear. Chest rising and falling heavily, Johnny just looks at her for a long moment with an expression she can’t place before he kisses her so gently it takes her by surprise. 

No tongue, no pushing it further, just a soft little kiss while his thumb strokes her cheek. 

It… It feels like it means something.   
  
Then she laughs; she doesn’t mean to, it bubbles up from her throat and thankfully, it makes him laugh too, because yeah, it is almost funny how good that feels. 

Climbing off him and back out of the car into the blistering sun to dress feels like torture and she turns up the air conditioning as far as it will go once they’re back on the road. The chill is nice on her hot skin and there’s still a little tremble in her fingers for a good while after. They don’t even talk, Johnny melts back into the seat and they both enjoy a cigarette.

Still, something gets on her mind when it finally clears. 

“Okay, since you brought up the fucking, I gotta mention something else… You remember telling me you didn’t want me to fuck anyone else?”

V glances at him in her peripheral vision, trying to gauge his expression. He has his sunglasses on though, and his mouth doesn’t give anything away. Inscrutable bastard. 

“Yeah,” he says eventually. 

“You mean that?” She has to ask, she has to know.

Johnny makes a noncommittal noise and shrugs a shoulder, tapping his fingers on the window to the music. 

“Nah. Possessive in the moment shit, pay it no mind,” he says, “mouth gets away from me.” 

Well, it sure as shit sounded like he meant it, but V supposes she can say some out of pocket shit too when she’s being fucked within an inch of her life.

“So… I’m good to…”

“Screw to your heart's content, V. Just not that cop, alright? That stands.”

“Fair,” V says, although she thinks she made it pretty clear she’s not interested. 

“Apart from that, I’ll keep my mouth shut. Not your boyfriend,” he says. V snorts.

“Oh, and here I thought we could be so good together.”

She lets it lie - leaving feelings out of it seems like the best bet, here. 

“For the record, even though I’m not putting a promise ring on that finger just yet, I still think we should fuck when the mood strikes.” Johnny picks up the NiCola in the cupholder and passes it to her, indicating he wants a sip. Apparently, he’s got a taste for it. 

“You do?” She takes a big drink on request. 

“I do. Haven’t had the chance to eat your pussy ‘til you cry, yet.” Johnny looks at her over the top of his glasses, looking for a blush, probably. 

“That been on your mind?” V raises an eyebrow. The image of him going down on her is definitely not awful. 

“Got the look of a woman with a delicious cunt. What can I say?” 

Okay, that gets a blush. Fucker. 

“Less. You can say less.” 

  
** ** ** 

  
The building isn’t what she expects from a doctor that Hellman recommended. First, it’s in the middle of fucking nowhere, at the end of a barely visible path off the road. Second, the place is Pueblo-style red clay that’s barely distinguishable from the desert around it, all rounded edges, with colourful murals painted around the front door. She’s pretty sure she wouldn’t have seen it if it weren’t for the landscaped cacti grown around it and the bright blue front door.

“No fuckin’ way this is the right place, you fucked up somewhere,” Johnny looks out of the front window as they pull up.

“These are the exact coordinates he sent me and it’s the only building for miles,” V shuts off the engine.

“Nah, V, this ain’t a place you get brain surgery, this is a place you do ayahuasca and see the face of God ‘til it wears off and you puke up half your body weight.” 

“That’s fuckin’ specific,” V gets out. She’s not going to have driven all this way to not even meet the guy. 

“It is. Sidenote: don’t drink any funky smelling tea this guy offers you.” 

The door swings open when she’s halfway up the steps to the house.

“You must be V!” A guy wearing a ragged looking t-shirt and loose shorts answers the door and pulls her into a friendly hug that makes her freeze. 

“Woah,” V pushes him back, “not a hugger.” 

“No worries, no worries,” he does a little half-bow and smiles kindly. He doesn’t look like some kind of shaman, as his house would suggest, he looks like he’s in his mid-50s maybe, tousled hair brown hair, a little unshaved scruff and casual as all hell. 

This had been Hellman’s friend?

“Well, come in, come in, it’s a scorcher,” he goes inside and she follows tentatively. People with friendly energy have always put her on edge. 

“You’re the doctor I’m supposed to see, right?” The place inside is as the outside suggests, airy and open, colourful art and sculptures everywhere. 

“Yes, Doctor López, but call me David.” 

She follows him to the kitchen and notices through the double glass doors that his fenced-in yard outside has a big pool. Essential out here, probably. 

“Okay, David. Hellman tell you anything about me?” 

“Very little,” the doctor shakes his head as he takes a big pink pitcher of pink liquid out of the fridge, “Hellman and I took diverging paths. I got the impression he shouldn’t have been telling me anything at all.”

“True that,” Johnny appears on the counter, “remember what I said, V, don’t drink that shit.”

“Pink lemonade? I make it myself,” the pitcher drips with condensation and V realises how thirsty she is - the warm NiCola had not done the trick. 

“Yeah, sure,” V’s still thrown off by his friendliness; he’s acting like they’re old friends, totally unfazed to have someone he must know is a criminal in his house, “you can grow lemons out here?”

“Yes, real, too, not synthetic,” he smiles and pours out two glasses, “I have a small hydroponic garden in the back. Hard to get Buck a Slice delivered out here.”

V smiles a little and takes the glass after he’s dropped some ice cubes and a red straw in it. 

“Fuck me,” she says after a sip - it might be the most refreshing thing she’s ever drunk, “that’s fuckin’ good.”

Doctor López laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling, “That’s what I like to hear! Now, let’s go somewhere comfortable to talk about your situation, yes?”

So she ends up sitting cross-legged in a big wicker chair with her shoes off telling him the whole sorry tale. There’s something just comforting about his demeanour that makes it surprisingly easy to talk, but he isn’t as jovial when he listens to her. He takes notes, nods, asks her to clarify when needed.

That they can touch, talk aloud, hurt one another, that really gets his attention.

So that’s how she ends up in his surgery room, the polar opposite to the rest of the house, clinically white and pristine with a big window that looks over the desert. He jacks into the port on her neck so he can scan her brain and he takes a long time about it, eyes glazed over bright blue.

“Putting a lot of trust in this guy, V,” Johnny sits on the bed next to her, but she can barely see him for the code flashing in her vision.

“Think we’ve established I’m desperate,” V says, “besides, I kinda like the guy.”

“Me too,” Johnny says, maybe the first time she’s heard him say that about anyone, “just don’t want… Kinda on edge about him screwing your noggin.”

“I know,” V considers touching his leg in a comforting way because he sounds kind of concerned, but she doesn't do it, “It’ll be fine.”

When he jacks out, López lets out a long breath that shakes a little and sits down in his chair, looking kind of shaken.

“You good, doc?” V asks.

“Yeah, yes, I just-" he shakes his head, “Hellman and I theorised about this kind of technology, but to see it in practice is remarkable.”

“Remarkable isn’t exactly my word for it,” V says.

“No, of course not, not in your situation,” López runs a hand through his messy hair and seems to get himself together, “did something change with the engram while I was looking at your brain?”

“Well, Johnny kind of, came out, if that’s what you mean,” V gestures next to her, “he’s here now.”

Johnny waves at the doctor as if he can see him. 

“That is fascinating,” López says, then he stands to find his notebook, “it visibly _showed_ in your brain activity - it was as if the engram had paused in its effort to overwrite your cells. The synapses firing were yours and yours alone.”

“What does that mean, though?” V watches him pace, writing quickly on the paper.

López holds up a finger, writing quickly, filling the page then flipping it over to another. 

“What that Silverhand engram has erased cannot be rebuilt on its own, however, we could, in theory, create another biochip and upload onto it data from you. Everyone has a huge digital footprint and the data is all easily accessible to a good hacker. Braindances, net activity, even conversations you have had with a shard in your port can all be used to rebuild any lost parts of your personality.”

“Before I came to Night City I didn’t even have chrome, barely even used the net at all.”

“That is unimportant,” López says, “all we need are tentpoles for your brain cells to build upon. There may be gaps in your memory, you may lose a taste for certain foods you liked before, but the core of you will stay intact.”

V nods, trying to get her head around the idea,”What about Johnny’s chip?”

“Even if I make a biochip for you, the old one will still exist after we remove it, of course. Silverhand’s psyche will be intact on it… I had assumed you would want to destroy it. I had hoped I could study it.”

“No on both accounts,” V says immediately. Mild surprise crosses the doctor’s face, “I don’t want Johnny erased or trapped in some chip.”

“No?” López rubs a hand over his facial hair. 

“No.” She says firmly. 

“V - it’s your body, okay? Had my chance, just do what you have to do.” Johnny is sitting in the chair the doctor vacated now, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, looking steadfast. 

“Shut up.” She tells him in her head. It’s not a discussion she’s having about why and she’s not up for arguing with him right now.

Actually, that she’s so sure she wants him alive is something that has only stepped into clarity for her at that moment. 

“Think there’s a way to - I don’t know - keep Johnny around?”

Please, please let there be a way to keep Johnny around. 

“My first thought was to wipe the Silverhand biochip entirely before removal - I believe our chances of success would be higher if the engram were not trying to cling to your body, as it likely will.” 

V sighs and scrubs a hand through her hair; she’s going to have to tell him something. 

“We’re kind of - we’re friends,” she says, which feels like underselling it at this point, “we’re close.” 

"One way of sayin' my jizz is probably leakin' into your undies right now," Johnny snorts, she makes a face at him for being gross but ignores it otherwise. 

The doc’s eyebrow quirks, “Ah, that explains a lot.”

“It does?”

“Silverhand’s engram is surprisingly stable in this world. The difference in your brain activity when he is apart from you is astounding, the two of you almost completely separate.”

“How, though?” V is no closer to understanding any of this shit.

“I would have to study it a lot closer, of course, but perhaps feeling more like a person, believing he exists physically in this space allows the mind, both your minds, to feel that way also.”

“Doesn’t sound very sciencey.” V points out. It sounds existential, almost.

“Science and the mystery of human nature are close relatives,” he says with a small smile, “and the mind is a powerful thing.”

It all sounds right and good, sure, but it's not like she knows enough about science to prove or disprove anything.

“Do you think you can do this?”

López sighs and sits on the bed beside her, considering that. 

“At this early stage, I think I can, this is exactly the kind of research I was doing in my younger years, but I’m not the type to lie about my confidence, either,” he says, “I’m sure I can do the operation, its success is unclear.”

“Meaning?”

“I am talking about removing what is now a part of your brain. Separated from you as Silverhand can be, he is already a part of you. No matter how quickly I input the new biochip, even milliseconds without the Silverhand construct could still kill you.”

Any light of promise is already becoming increasingly dimmed. 

“What do you think the chances are?”

The doctor sighs and looks down at his hands for a moment, not a good sign. 

“Off the top of my head I would say between 15%-19%,” he tells her straight, regret in his eyes. 

“Fuck me, what a waste of time,” Johnny gets up from the chair irately and crosses to look out of the window, arms crossed.

V tries to keep it together. At least the guy is being fucking honest with her. 

“If he could remain in the state that you are in now, with him more grounded in the physical world, then that number could get higher. But you say he has wavering control over it?”

She sighs, “Better than it was at first but he still vanishes back into my head without meaning to,”

“Then, this is not a variable I can account for,” López gets up and goes to where he has set down the two glasses of lemonade on the table and hands one to her. She takes a sip, its grounding, the sweetness a momentary, minor distraction from the disappointment. 

“So, tell me how we would do it in theory. You remove the biochip, you insert one with my data on it, then you remove that one and I’m totally better. What then?” 

“I would imagine there is still someone alive that has the rights to Silverhand’s likeness,” he says.

“Yeah, Kerry,” Johnny grumbles, still looking out of the window, “must’ve made some serious scratch off merch with my face on by now.”

“Right, heard the plan was to use recent cadavers,” V says.

“Yes, but you can make about anyone you want from a decent starting point. It depends on how detailed the records of the living person are. In this case, I can't think of many better candidates - there are so many photographs, videos, of Silverhand from every single angle.”

“Naked pics of me too online, somewhere - this ends up happening, don’t wanna lose a single inch. Tell him.” Johnny points at her, deadly serious. 

“So what would we need?”

“A new cadaver of a man of the same height is about the only requirement, the rest we could craft. I could put together a team of rippers, experts, the best, and of course this is not safe information to be passed around, I would tell them as little as possible but we would still have to pay for their discretion. Then we would simply insert the engram into our new Silverhand and, in theory, voila.”

It’s a nice idea, the best she’s heard so far. But, Christ, 15%? Might as well be 0 when their lives are on the line. 

“So, how much will all that cost?” V asks.

“Well, around one million eurodollars, I would say. Perhaps less, if I call in favours from old friends.”

Her heart fully drops then. 

“Fuck.” Johnny curses and she feels a little stab in her gut that comes from him. 

“Of course,” she says and laughs a little, shaking her head. 

“Is this out of your reach?”

“A little, at the moment,” she says, “could figure something out though.”

Johnny crosses the room to her, hands on his hips, “V, you have 100k in your account - you cracked?”

V leans back on her hand, suddenly exhausted. 

“One mil for a 19% chance at life, at best. Shit.”

“I understand this is disappointing,” López says, sounding genuinely sad for her, “I'm sorry I can't offer anything better.”

“Not your fault,” V taps his arm twice, “thanks for tryin’, you didn’t have to.”

“You have my contact,” he says, “and you know where I am, if the idea becomes more appealing to you.”

V leaves in an odd mood. The sun is starting to go down outside, but the heat hasn’t let up; still, the desert really is beautiful. She’d thought she might be mad at the increased hopelessness of the situation, depressed, maybe, but she just feels tired, above all else, she feels tired.

The doc waves at her pleasantly before he closes the door and she walks on slow legs to her car, enjoying the crunch of sand and stone underfoot and wondering, again, why she ever quit spending all her time in wide-open spaces like this. 

“This risk doesn’t seem worth the reward, does it?” V says quietly as she opens the car door. “Even if I could find the money.”

“Agreed. You goin’ under the knife for a 15% chance of survival doesn’t appeal to me either.” Johnny leans his arms on the top of the car, looking over at her, "he said that number goes higher if you just wipe me, though."

"Uh-huh, and I said I don't want that." V looks him in the eye, and they both know there's something to that fact. It _means_ something, that she won't kill him to save herself, but that meaning is not something either of them is equipped to unpack.

Johnny looks at her for a long moment before relenting with a nod. 

“Leaves us with…” 

“I know,” V sighs, “Hanako Ara-fuckin’-Saka.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone dropping comments and kudos, it's seriously so motivating to keep writing when you actually know people like it, lol.
> 
> Lmk what you thought!


	5. Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I looked and the ‘fuck’ count so far is 244. Might need to cool it on that. 
> 
> Also, this is looong, make yourself a cup of coffee. 
> 
> Also, there's sex in it, yay! But don't read it on the train or anything.

If Johnny were Claire, he’d pick V to be his driver in a race too; girl drives like a fucking maniac, but she has good control. She’d opened it up on the road a couple of times on the way home from Phoenix, putting her foot down enough he found himself holding onto the dashboard like he could die again while she laughed her ass off. He didn’t mind much, she’d been quiet for a while after the doc had been a bust; better for her to be laughing. 

Must come from all those years on the road, he supposes, used to flooring it for miles at a time. There’s not one ounce of fear in her as she tears through the streets, spinning the wheel, hugging the turns. V has total focus, barely even hearing the gunfire as Claire leans out of the window like a maniac herself. 

There’s something about the way she feels while she’s driving like that - exhilarated, free as a fucking bird. It’s intoxicating. 

Still, he stays in her head; since she’s the one controlling the car he’ll feel the movement of it if he’s in his own body and he doesn’t feel like being thrown around like a ragdoll back there. He just watches through her eyes and feels her blood pumping as she skids the tires to take a sharp corner. 

“Don’t let that fucker get away!” Claire yells, ducking in the car to reload.

“I’m on him!”   


Yeah, it’s a different kind of race this time, not playing to win, playing for the blood of some corpo that killed Claire’s husband. V doesn’t totally like it, she’s got a little competitive streak and wanted her crown. Still, her friends come first even if she’s too much of a bitch to say that out loud. 

“Front left tire’s gone, gonna get the back so he skids out. Get me close,” Claire cocks her machine gun and leans back out. 

“Uh-huh,” V just about misses the truck about to sideswipe her across the busy intersection. Jesus, if she dies like this he’ll be so pissed.

They’re on an open stretch of empty bridge then and Sampson’s car is well in sight. V’s hands tighten on the wheel, and Johnny can feel her urge to overtake him because she knows she  _ can _ and she just wants to fucking  _ win _ . 

She won’t do it to Claire though, won’t stand between her and her revenge. 

Her bullet hits just right. The front tire bursts and the car goes veering off to the left with a vengeance, takes out a parked bike with it and rolls for two bounces before it bursts into flames.

“Shit!” V slams on the brakes so they don’t go flying right past it. 

“No way he’s dead, pull over,” Claire is already bailing out of the car before V has totally stopped, clearly seeing red. 

V doesn’t hesitate to follow her, pulling out the aluminium baseball bat from under the seat first. She rests it on her shoulder and walks to Claire’s side where she watches Sampson crawl out of the upturned car. It’s raining heavy, they’re immediately drenched but there’s a lot of heat coming off the flaming car.

“Claire! Please, don’t, I didn’t do anything!” Sampson pleads, pushing himself to sit with shaky arms, bloody scratches on his face.

“Huh, changed your tune from before the race haven’t you, corpo?” V raises her eyebrow. She is good at sounding dangerous, it’s one of Johnny’s favourite things about her. 

“Jesus! What the fuck do you want? I didn’t kill Dean!” 

“Shut your trap!” Claire points down at him, trembling with rage.

“He got himself killed, I swear, please let me go,” he reaches up a shaking hand, “listen to me, don’t let her kill me.”

He looks up at V with desperation and she tries to discern if he’s a good actor who’s desperate for his life or if there’s something to what he’s saying. Johnny keeps quiet, interested to see which way V goes since he can’t much tell yet either.

“What’s he talkin’ about?” V looks over at Claire.

“Does it matter? He’s just trying to save his skin,” Claire says, pulling her pistol.

“No! Please, don’t let her. I didn’t kill her fucking husband!” 

“I said shut your hole!” Claire rattles the gun in front of his face.

“Say what you gotta say, asshole,” V lets the tip of the baseball bat clink on the ground.

“Dean tried to pass me just before the finish line, but he lost control! Yeah, I rammed you, but that’s not against the rules. It’s this kind of racing! We shoot at each other for christ’s sake.” 

V’s not into killing this guy, Johnny can feel it and he can’t totally blame her. Claire had made it sound premeditated, like he could’ve won the race without doing it. 

“That true, Claire?” 

“What does it matter!? The bastard killed Dean, he has to pay for it!” Upset and righteous anger pours off her in waves. V’s torn. She wants to give her friend what she says she needs, but she isn’t sure if this  _ is _ what she needs. V might be up for fucking with corpos when the chance arises, but murdering one for something like this doesn’t feel right. 

“It was an accident! How many people you killed in races, huh!?” Sampson looks between V and Claire, white as a ghost. 

V’s not gonna do it, Johnny can already feel it. 

“Claire, I-”

“I loved him!” Claire looks at V, tears shining unbroken in her yes. “Loved him more than life itself, and I’m supposed to let this - this - I’m supposed to let this shit go, that what you expect?” 

A little shift in V’s chest. A clench in her heart like she knows she couldn’t be talked out of it either if she lost someone she loved like that, accident or not. Johnny can’t help wondering if she ever  _ has _ loved someone like that. More than life itself, Claire said.

Johnny sure hasn’t. 

“Listen, I’m all for breaking the guy’s legs for that disrespectful shit he said before. Just don’t think flatlinin’ him is gonna make you feel any better,” V tells her honestly, but she knows that look, Johnny knows it too; there’s murder in her heart and there’s no stopping it. 

“Maybe you’re right, V,” Claire blinks the tears away, “But I don’t give a shit.” 

Three steps over to Sampson, barely time for him to say ‘no, wait’ before Claire fires off two shots right into his skull. 

Heavy shit. 

V just sighs as Sampson slumps to his side. Claire walks by her, stone-faced back to the truck. 

“Not gonna shed any tears over a corpo, are you?” Johnny pops out to ask, watching V move her wet hair out of her face. Can’t blame him for lightening the mood, right?

V doesn’t look amused though, just gives him a look and gets in the truck with Claire. God, she can be so damn  _ serious _ sometimes. 

They’re quiet for a while. Claire drives, V sits in the passenger seat and Johnny lays down in the back, like it matters where he is. 

“Your husband, what was he like?” V asks, voice gentle in that way it gets sometimes that reminds Johnny of a warm blanket, fresh out of the dryer. 

“He liked to sleep in…” Claire smiles a little. “I’m forgetting more and more. Scared I’ll lose what’s left of him.”

V nods and Johnny knows she’s thinking of the right thing to say. He just looks at her profile as she glances across at Claire; he would have no idea what to tell the chick. 

“Remember how you felt when you were around him though, right? Sittin’ on the bed together, acting like fools?” The side of her mouth raises in a smile.

“Of course,” Claire says.

“Then you remember all the important stuff,” V says, “how he made you feel, s’what counts.” 

“You think so?” Claire looks at her.

“Yeah,” V says, “not pretendin’ to be an expert or anything. Just sounds like you had someone that saw you as you are and you saw them in return. Hard to come by, I think.” 

Johnny almost says something, almost asks her where she got that from and when she became such a goddamn romantic. He doesn’t though, because no part of him feels like being snarky at her being all soft like that.

“Was never about the races, was it? You just strung me along with it so you could go after Sampson,” there’s nothing accusatory in V’s tone, she’s just stating a fact.

“Yeah,” Claire says, “racing was something Dean and I shared - not really got much of a desire to do it now he’s gone.” 

“Shame,” V smirks a little, “thought I had potential.”

Claire breathes a little laugh out of her nose, “You were good, I’ll give you that.” 

They’re quiet again. Claire’s mind is clearly somewhere else and V doesn’t push her to talk anymore. Hanging out with Misty must be making her more sensitive - Johnny hopes she isn’t going to start hanging dreamcatchers around the apartment next. 

She drops Claire off and accepts the truck as a gift. Claire doesn’t want it anymore, and V thinks it’ll handle nicely on the desert roads next time she’s out there, so she doesn’t fight her too hard on it. 

When they’re back on the road home, Johnny appears in the passenger seat. 

“Almost died in a fiery car wreck for her revenge quest. You good with that?” He has to ask. 

“Least it was a fun revenge quest, huh?” V shrugs a shoulder noncommittally and lights up a cigarette. It’s not dark yet; only afternoon but the rain almost makes it look like night outside.

“Love a joyride myself but you nearly got your head blown off like three times,” he points to a bullet hole in the windshield, “our head.”

“My head,” V corrects, “and that’s nothing new. Risk getting my head blown off most days.”

“The head blown off/fiery car-wreck combo is rare,” Johnny enjoys the nicotine as she smokes. 

The rain is fully lashing down now, the windshield wipers can barely keep up with the spray and the window is a blur of reflected neon from the signs and billboards outside. Johnny always thinks of Night City like this: a wet haze of blue and red.

“Careful, Johnny,” V smirks a little, “you almost sound worried about me.” 

He had been worried about her. He can admit that to himself now.

“You wish,” he says, because admitting it to  _ her _ is a little harder.

She smiles to herself though and makes a turn off a couple of blocks away from their apartment.

“I want Chinese food, sound good?” 

“Sounds good,” Johnny says. The ghost of flavour from her tastebuds is always nice, even if it does bring home the frustration of not being able to just eat the food himself.

They end up in a tiny restaurant in Little China and V sits at the back so it’s not so obvious if she talks to herself. She’s getting worse at just keeping it in her own head when he’s around, keeps slipping and talking out loud in company. It might make her look crazy, but Johnny prefers it, having a real conversation with her face to face like normal people. 

She orders a few dishes and takes a little from each bowl and plate and quenches that hunger she gets after hours of working and not eating. 

He notices her little habits now, like that she sometimes eats too fast and gives herself heartburn, and that she’s clumsy with chopsticks and usually just dives in with her fingers. 

“Was interesting watching that exchange between you and the corpo Claire murked earlier,” Johnny leans back in the chair and watches her dip a dumpling in sauce. 

“Was it?” She pops the whole thing in her mouth and gets a little sauce on the corner. 

“Yeah. Kinda seems like you might be gettin’ soft in your old age,” Johnny says.

“You’re the old one here, man. Think I don’t see those greys?” V chuckles a little, “but go on, what was soft about what went down there?”

“Not about what went down, was about how you felt. Guilty. When he was down there pleading with you.”

V considers that for a moment, licking the sauce off her finger and thumb.

“Didn’t feel guilty,” V says, “didn’t feel good, but wouldn’t call it  _ guilty _ .” 

“Call it what you like. Just never seen you feel pity for a corpo rat before,” Johnny points out. He isn’t totally sure why he pokes at her like this. Just wants to figure her the fuck out, he supposes.

V takes a sip of her beer and cocks her head, considering that too, “Not a normal experience for me, seein’ a man on the ground begging for his life… Know you think I’m a stone-cold bitch but I am capable of pity.” 

“You  _ are _ a stone-cold bitch but I get your point,” he reaches over and wipes the sauce off the corner of her lips with his thumb, when he licks it off, he can’t taste it, “better watch that pity stuff though, V. Slippery slope when you start seein’ corpo’s as people.”

“True. Worked out great for you, huh?” 

Johnny gives her the middle finger when she gets up to pay and leave. She’s tired, he can feel it. He might not even ask if she wants to fuck today, even though it has kind of gotten to be their routine for the past week or so. 

It’s like the floodgates have been opened. Now the option is on the table, and it feels so insanely good, it’s kind of hard  _ not _ to. He catches himself just popping out so he can  _ look _ at her and remember the image of her with her mouth open and a moan in her throat while she clears a building with her pistol like an action hero. 

Thing is, Johnny knows it’s not just the crazy brain meshing going on between them that’s making it so intense. He isn’t exactly sure how he knows, he can just feel it. There’s something in the way his chest clenches when they lock eyes in the middle of it that’s too real  _ not _ to be fucking real. He can’t actually name whatever that is, though. 

All he knows for a fact is that he wants her pretty much all the time. 

By the time they’re home, he’s already talked himself into it. He kisses her as soon as the door closes and gets two good handfuls of her ass. She kisses him back for a second before pulling back with a breathless laugh.

“Jesus, Johnny. Can I take my shoes off?” She nudges him away but she’s not mad; he knows that little glint in her eye and the way she tries to hide half a smile. Johnny backs off, hands up in surrender as she unlaces her boots.

“Think I can wait that long,” he reaches over his shoulder and takes off his tank top. She likes him with his shirt off and he likes the way she runs her nails up his stomach.

“Wait for what?” She asks, all big innocent eyes as if there’s  _ anything _ innocent about her. Johnny sits down at the edge of the bed and watches her wrap her hair up in a big clip and pin it up at the top of her head.

Beautiful. V is so fucking beautiful it might kill him before anything else geta a chance. 

“You playing babe in the woods tonight?” Johnny raises his eyebrow. “Faking like you aren’t the dirtiest girl in Watson?”

V doesn’t say anything, just goes to her closet and peels off her jeans, then the rest of her clothes. His cock twitches immediately like he’s in his 20s. He looks over the perfect slopes over her body, the pink peaks of her nipples and the dark hair at the juncture of her thighs. Johnny wishes he had a drink to hand, his mouth is dry. 

“Thirsty?” She cocks her head and a few blonde tendrils fall around her face.

“Feel that?” Caught. She’s caught him practically drooling. Fuck. He’s gonna lose all his cool cred with her. 

“Just a hint, back of my tongue,” she goes to the fridge and takes out a bottle of water and drinks a few mouthfuls for him. 

“C’mere,” Johnny needs to feel her skin now, needs to keep the softness of her fresh in his mind always.

With the water bottle still in hand, V stands between his knees and takes another big drink. A couple of droplets drip down her chin and she wipes them away with the back of her hand. The bottle clunks to the floor when Johnny gets her on her back in the next second. 

The little gasp she lets out is goddamn delicious. It’s good to get a girl like her to gasp.

He kisses down her neck and over her chest, he sucks her nipple into his mouth and enjoys the way she threads her fingers into his hair. Usually, they’re fast about it all, frantic to get to the smashing because it’s too good to resist.

Means he hasn’t gone down on her yet though, which is a fucking crime. 

V sits her head up so she can see what he’s doing, but it falls back again when his mouth trails down her stomach below her navel. Johnny slides off the bed so he’s on his knees on the floor and tugs her to the edge so she can put her legs over his shoulders.

Johnny looks at her again from his new vantage between her thighs, up the curve of her stomach and the undersides of her tits. She’s not looking at him, she’s breathing shaky and has her forearm draped over her eyes.

He licks right up the middle of her and, yeah, she tastes as sweet as she sounds. 

“Johnny...” she whimpers and her fingers slide into his hair again. He doesn’t feel like teasing. He just wants to taste every bit of her that he can, have her keep making those sounds and saying his name like that.

Johnny kisses and licks at her wetness, holding her thighs firm as she writhes up to meet his mouth, little gasps and moans falling out of her own. 

When he sucks at her clit and runs his tongue side to side over it she jolts in his grasp and he holds her tighter, not letting her move a millimetre away from his tongue. The fingers in his hair tug a little and he hears himself groaning into her - Jesus, he could fucking do this forever. 

He doesn't know how long he's doing it for, but his knees start to ache. His only mission is to find out exactly what makes her feel good so he can have her pulling his hair like that on a regular basis. He'd joked about it before, but it does feel like he could find god in her pussy if he gets to know her well enough. 

“Ahh, Johnny, Johnny,” he lets go of one of her thighs to unfasten his zipper because his cock hurts with how hard he is now. She’s about to come, he can feel the tension in her, he can hear it in the pitch of her voice.

His head gets fuzzy, lost in it all. Sweat pricks his skin and he pushes her closer and closer to it, wet all over his beard.

She says his name again, and she’s right there, teetering on the edge of coming.

So Johnny pulls back from her and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. V is visibly frustrated, pink face falling to the side, chest heaving.

“Oh, fuck you,” she moans, breathing shakily. Johnny laughs a little and unbuckles his pants as quick as possible. 

“You’re coming on my cock or not at all,” he shoves his pants and briefs down and off. V doesn’t move, lying where he left her with her knees open. 

“Hurry up then,” she sits up on her elbows, “fuck me, Johnny.” 

Jesus Christ.

He gets distracted for a second by her words and the lips they came out of. Pretty and pink. He’s not had his dick in her mouth yet either and suddenly it’s all he can think of. She can take it, he bets, all the way down.

“Johnny…” Her fingers slip into her pussy, impatient. He can’t wait a second longer, couldn’t physically stop himself from getting his cock inside her if the world were ending.

Johnny hauls her with one arm so her head is against the pillows. He bunches one up to put in the small of her back so she’s comfortable when he rams his cock all the way inside her and her hands grab at the sheets under her. 

“Ah, fuck,” Johnny moans, a break in his voice, engulfed by the wet, tight heat of her. Her heels find the back of his thighs and her fingers scrape at his back; she clenches around his cock too, her whole body just grabbing him in a way that’s going to make him cum way too quick. If he could think of something else, maybe he could stop it, but he can’t, he can’t think at all.

“Yeah, Johnny,” she moans, eyes fluttering closed as he builds up a rhythm. 

He fists a pillow and puts all his strength into thrusting into her, doing everything he can do to get those loudest sounds out of her.

Johnny never knows where to look. Her mouth, her eyes, her tits, his cock slipping in and out of her wet cunt like they really were designed for each other.

Christ, they only just started and he’s already halfway there, thank christ he ate her pussy first. This isn’t a woman you cum before.

“Fuck me, baby, fuck me,” V chants, as lost as him. 

Baby, baby, baby. She’s never called him that before. It pushes him closer to coming, he feels it low. Johnny closes his eyes and presses his forehead into the side of her neck and gives it to her until the bed springs are squeaking. She needs it and she wants it and she deserves everything she needs and wants.

She moans and shouts like she doesn’t have neighbours and grasps his arms so tight she might leave a mark. He hopes she does. 

“I’m gonna cum,” she half-sobs. Johnny doesn’t let up, he just lifts his head so he can watch her face when she does. 

When her hand leaves his arm he knows she’s going to slip it between her legs to get herself off, so he grabs it with his metal one and pins it to the pillow next to her head.

“Nuh-uh,” is all he says and keeps screwing her fast and firm, making sure she feels every inch every time. He wants to make her cum, him and his cock alone.

She makes a frustrated sound that melts into a whine and his free hand finds her jaw so he can push his thumb in her mouth. He likes the way she sucks it, eyes closing, lips red and shiny around his flesh. 

“You like that, baby?” He turns the pet name back on her, sees how it tastes. 

“Yeah,” she moans, “I like it.”   
  
He likes it too, likes making his girl feel good.

Wait-

“Oh,  _ oh _ !” V clutches at the hand on her jaw and throws her head back when she cums, back bowing, clenching and unclenching around him. Johnny groans at the feeling of it and the sight of her like that; she’s silent for a couple of seconds as it rolls through her, then she’s gasping. Johnny keeps still for a few beats as she rides it out. 

Fuck, she is like nothing else.

“That’s it, baby,” Johnny kisses her open mouth, licks at her tongue, “that’s it.”

Then he keeps screwing her, heavy thrusts that make her shake and quiver. He needs to cum too, and thank fuck he can’t get her pregnant because his lizard brain is in full gear and it tells him to fill her with it, he wants it to still be leaking out of her tomorrow.

Johnny buries his face into her neck again and surrenders to the sensory overload. The smell of her perfume, the taste of her still on his back teeth, hot and soft everywhere and grabbing him like _he’s_ keeping _her_ tethered to the world and not the other way around.

“God, you’re so fucking good,” she gasps out against his ear, delirious, “better than anybody.” 

That it’s, he’s gone. It kicks like a fucking shotgun and he lets out a loud, undignified grunt when it hits, grabbing her ass to pull her up against him like she’s going to fade out and stop him from coming as deep inside her as he can get. 

She says his name, she keeps saying it and he realises she’s coming for a second time along with him, clenching so tight around his pulsing cock that it draws another spurt of cum out of him and it’s his turn to gasp, shakily groaning it out right next to her ear, unable to stop himself. 

It drags on for a long time, his cock twitching inside her until he's completely drained. His vision is hazy, colourful spots around the edges

“Johnny, Johnny, baby,” she kisses at the side of his face, sweet little pecks that make his body tingle. He closes his eyes, trying to get his breath, the back of his thighs burning. 

He hasn’t got the will to move for a while but she doesn’t seem to mind, stroking at his back and moving his hair away from his face so gently he can’t believe they're the same hands that grasped that baseball bat earlier.

When he does sit his head up, she gives him an easy, tired smile that he almost can’t look at. It’s too much.

He pulls out of her and falls onto his back. After a minute, she sits up and reaches across to the shelves to get her cigarettes. Fuck, it’s exactly what he wants too. Maybe clear his head a little. 

Johnny sits himself up so he’s against the back of the bed. There’s a breeze coming through the window shutters behind the bed, but it’s nice on the back of his neck. She tugs the sheet up just around her waist so she’s somewhat covered, but otherwise, she stays bare, laying beside him and smoking her cigarette.

That clip holding her hair up is barely hanging on and whatever lipstick she had on is gone. She looks good like this, a flush in her cheeks and all the stress gone from her muscles.

“We could collect some serious eds if we started making porn,” Johnny says and V breathes out a smoky chuckle.

“Might need to get my tits done first.”

“The fuck are you talkin’ about?” Johnny’s almost offended she’s suggesting such a crime against nature.

“Just get ‘em hoisted up a little, y’know? Little nip and tuck,” she’s smirking, not being serious at all. 

“There’s no doubt in my mind that if anything could give me the strength to take over your body it would be stopping you from doing anything to those tits,” Johnny enjoys the twinkle of her laugh and the way she ducks her nose into her hand.

“Alright, different subject... I’ve been meanin’ to ask you something and I’m still about daffy enough to ask it,” V says with an amused smile already on her lips. 

“Ask away.”

V chews her bottom lip for a second, looking uncharacteristically shy. 

“The Ballad of Buck Ravers… I remember getting in a fight with my friend in the clan because he swore it was just literal. Capitalism drives Buck insane and he kills everyone in his office, but I always thought it was deeper than that,” she says. 

Johnny smiles to himself; she really must be daffy, because she would never stroke his ego like that if she were in her right mind. 

God, he used to hate answering questions about his lyrics, but it’s different coming from her. He likes picturing her a few years younger, blasting Samurai in her car and having some stupid argument with her friend about what it all means.

“Well, he does kill everyone in his office, but you’re right, there was more to it,” Johnny says.

“I knew it!” She’s beaming and he realises he’s resisting the instinct to put his arm over her shoulder and pull her to his side. “It’s about how corps devalue the lives of-”

Her fucking phone, of course, starts ringing. 

“Oh shit,” V scrambles around for the thing even though she could just answer with the bluetooth in her shard port. She really does hate that tech stuff. 

“River,” she gives Johnny a look when she answers the phone, holding her cigarette between her lips, “what’s up?”

“What’s up is he’s been having wet dreams about you and he can’t take no for an answer,” Johnny stretches out comfortably, arm behind his head like the guy doesn’t bother him. He does bother him.

V puts the phone on speaker so she can lie back down and keep smoking. 

“I’m sorry to call you out of the blue but you were the best person I could think of… I’ve got a problem,” River sounds tense. 

“Probably best if you talk to a fixer who can-”

“No it’s… It’s personal. Some sick fuck called Harris just got brought in, he’s in a coma right now. Been kidnapping and killing teenage boys.” 

“Well, good he’s been caught, then.” V isn’t sure where this is going. Johnny isn’t either, but he can already tell he’s not getting his post-orgasm nap.

“He’s been caught but my nephew is missing. Randy. Last kid Harris kidnapped fell out of his car dead wearing Randy’s shoes,” he sounds strained.

“Oh, shit,” V sits up, posture changing from totally relaxed to ready to work. Johnny sighs to himself; there’s always something, “guessin’ if you’re calling me there’s an issue with the case.”

“Yeah, they’ve taken me off it. More like a restraining order, actually, can’t get near it,” River says bitterly, “I need the help of someone who knows how to get around cops.” 

Johnny watches V’s back move. She rolls her shoulders and presses her palm to her forehead for a second, torn between her need to rest and her inability to let things go once she knows something needs to be done.

“Drop me an address, I’ll come meet you.” V gets out of bed and heads for the bathroom, phone in hand. Johnny hears River’s relieved sigh before he thanks her and she hangs up. 

“See, gettin’ soft!” Johnny calls across the apartment before settling back into the pillows.

Fucking cop. He was gonna talk to her about The Ballad of Buck Ravers.

** ** ** 

“Hey, V,” River looks preoccupied when V hops in his car. Johnny stays in her head even though the size of the fucking guy is more obvious through her eyes. Guy’s like a truck. 

“How you holdin’ up?” She asks, tucking her sunglasses into her pocket. She’s all in leather, big boots on, dressed to fight if it comes to it. 

“Been better… Probably not hard to tell,” River says. 

“Yeah, you look like warmed up shit.” V settles into the passenger seat and looks at him expectantly. “So, give me the deets.”

River lays out what he knows, which isn’t a lot, shocker. They’re going to try and get a look at the dreams of this Harris freak. Apparently, he’s a vegetable, no interrogation necessary. 

They follow River up the street to the outside of the NCPD building. 

“We need to get in but not through the main entrance. There’s an audit keeping workers out of the building but camera's in reception will still get us,” River says.    
  
V faux gasps, “Oh  _ no _ , you want to break the law?”

“Never been to this precinct. Help me out?” River smiles at her a little. Jesus Johnny wants to punch him. 

They’re around back in no time. River boosts V up through a window and she opens the back door from the inside. Thankfully, there are no cops around the lab. She’s good but an entire department of geared up cops are too much for her. 

“Remind me what we’re looking for?” Johnny follows lazily behind her once she and River split up.

“A BD with one of this sick fuck’s dreams on it,” V keeps her eyes sharp, dipping into every office and searching through the drawers, “can’t wait to see _that_.” 

“They’re divin’ into people’s dreams now, great.” Johnny sits back in a BD chair and watches her hack a computer.

“Yeah, seems kinda fucked, huh?” V says distractedly. 

“Scientists figure out how to access your dreams, they sell that info to the corps, all of a sudden you’re seeing targeted ads for your unconscious desires,” Johnny isn’t shocked by anything like this anymore. 

“Wake up from a sex dream and see a billboard of a joytoy that looks like your fantasy,” she smirks. 

“Heh, I know who yours would look like,” Johnny makes sure he slips back into her head before she can scowl at him. 

When some chick, Dr Yawen Packard, shows up scolding River for working the case even though he’s suspended, Johnny gets at least 0.01% more respect for him than he had before. At least his cop allegiance isn’t bottomless.

Anyway, the lab turns out to be a bust since the freak isn’t dreaming. Johnny only half cares, he’s paying more attention to the little glances the meathead keeps throwing in V’s direction when she isn’t looking. Guy is smitten, it’s pathetic. 

Johnny sits in the backseat when they’re back in the car. Doesn’t want her to forget he’s there. 

“Think it might have been worth tellin’ me you’ve been fired?” V leans back in the seat comfortably. Tiredness settles in her limbs and she ignores it. 

“Suspended,” River corrects, “and yeah, should’ve said. Sorry.”

He feels V’s surprise at getting such an easy apology and Johnny knows exactly why that is.  _ He _ never apologises so easily, saying sorry for him feels like pulling teeth. 

Is this what she wants? Some dude who’s all gentle?

“Kicked up a fuss about the mayor’s assassination.” River explains. 

“Ah, NCPD doesn’t like fuss,” V lights a cigarette and offers him one but he declines. 

“Hm,” is all River says, looking like his head is elsewhere. 

“Where are we goin’ now?” 

“To Joss’s, Randy’s mom, my sister. She just thinks he ran away from home. For now, keep the kidnapping between us.”

“Shouldn’t we be kicking in Harris’ apartment door?” V opens the window to blow the smoke out. 

“It’s a house. And I doubt he’s keeping his victims in his basement.”

“I’ve seen that happen.” 

“No, too simple. Wanna see if I can find some connection to Harris at Randy’s. He has a trailer next to Joss’s.”

“Pretty weak lead,” V says.    
  
“Best we can hope for,” River shrugs a shoulder, “Buy you a beer after, for your trouble.”

“This fuckin’ guy,” Johnny rolls his eyes. He should start taking a tally of how often this guy tries to turn this detective duo shit into a date. 

“I’m good. Said I’d help you and I will. Was just hoping you’d have more info,” V’s got that hint of impatience in her tone. Good.   


“Yeah, well, just a dumbass cop, right? Might do better with you,” River glances over at her and V laughs a little. Shit, making her laugh is not good. 

They arrive at a trailer park on the outskirts of town. There are a few kids playing amongst the trailers in the sand but the place is mostly quiet. 

“The pig is trailer trash? Perfect,” Johnny can’t help but needle when they hop out of the car. 

“Trailer trash is a pretty classist term coming from an anarchist revolutionary,” V points out, sparing him a glance. 

“Principles don’t apply when it comes to cops,” Johnny kicks a can that his foot passes through, “lovely neighbourhood.”

They go inside the place and meet Joss; she has edges, but that’s pretty much to be expected if your kid is missing, Johnny guesses. V seems to like her, and she’s gentle with her in her own way. 

A couple of kids run to them on their way out of the trailer and greet ‘Uncle’ River. Jesus. Johnny is not a fan of kids. Just doesn’t get why people bother having them when they could just... Not. 

“Monique, Dorian, hey there,” River casts a small embarrassed glance to V. 

“Is this your girlfriend?” Monique asks, looking up at V with a little wonder. 

“Fuck no,” V laughs a bit and keeps walking to Randy’s trailer. 

“Just a friend,” River says and promises he’ll play with them later before rushing to catch up to V, “anyone ever tell you you’re not supposed to swear in front of kids?”

V looks up at him; he looks more amused than annoyed. Endeared, maybe.

“Night City kids have heard worse, trust me,” V gets to work looking around the trailer. Kid is clearly big into music, albums and posters everywhere, including a Samurai cut next to his record player. 

“Kid’s got taste,” Johnny looks at that familiar face, the angry red oni that he had felt such kinship with once.

V is delicate with Randy’s things, she moves his clothes aside when she looks through the drawers but bothers to fold them when she puts them back. 

They find his computer eventually, V manages to crack into it. The story unfolds from there. A creepy cartoon, a secret website, message upon message between him and this Harris guy. 

“Fucker was grooming him, plain as day,” V shakes her head, an unpleasant chill in her spine. 

“Jesus Christ,” River runs a hand over his face. 

“Something deeply fucked about that cartoon… My skin’s crawling,” River says.

“Same,” V tries to get herself together, “Might be enough to get the creep to dream, though.” 

“I’ll ping it to Yawen,” River taps a big hand on her shoulder, “Thanks, V.”

“Don’t mention it,” V says and touches his hand for a second. 

Johnny watches from where he’s sitting on the bed. They do kinda fit together, the two of them. About the same age, she’s gorgeous, he’s not ugly, he's _nice_ to her, which some girls like; shit, he’s probably not going to be a cop for much longer so that wouldn’t have to stop her. 

And Johnny's already made it clear _he’s_ not going to stop her, because she’s not his and he doesn’t even fucking exist anyway…

Johnny feels his thoughts spiralling and vanishes back into her head, hoping to god he can just sleep for a while. 

** ** ** 

Johnny gets his wish, but he couldn’t slip back into consciousness at a worse time. They’re pulling up at a creepy looking old farm, slow, with the car lights down. The place is totally dark - looks like the kind of place no one can be alive. He doesn’t like the guy, but Johnny has no desire to find some kid dead.

“Shit,” V says after a scan of the exterior, “traps goddamn everywhere.” 

She pings them, glad for the implants for once, so she can at least keep her eye on where all the mines are on the ground. One misstep and she’s a pile of limbs.

“Call the cops, let those fuckers get themselves blown up first,” Johnny tries to stamp down the extreme discomfort at the idea of her trying to get across that.

“No time,” V says in her head, “we’ve taken long enough already.”

“River, you stay here a second,” she says out loud, “You’re heavy as hell, gonna trip about five of them the first foot you step over there. 

“What are you gonna do?” River is visibly worried about her as well. Johnny thinks if he had any balls he would insist on going first. 

“Gonna disable the traps. Bet you anything it all leads to that little farmhouse,” she points to it, “I can get to that, clear a path to the barn.” 

“Be careful, V,” River tells her firmly. V nods and climbs out of the car and Johnny doesn’t make a goddamn peep. If there’s any time he needs to shut up and let her concentrate it’s now. 

She climbs the wire fence with grace and lands with her feet on either side of a mine. From there, each step is careful, slow and calculated, her teeth on edge and her ears tuned to the telltale beeping that will go off if she’s about to flatline on one of these fucking things.

Then she gets her boot up on the porch railing and uses that to hoist herself up to the roof. She’s sweating, knowing full well that if she falls there is no controlling where she lands. A couple of loose sleights fall off the roof as she moves slowly across it, half on her ass, not taking any risks. 

“This place is creepy as fuck,” Johnny says once she’s safely inside through a window, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. 

“Yeah,” V glances around the cold, dusty house, “probably got his mom’s corpse in the basement.” 

She keeps her voice low even though Harris is still safely in a vegetative state back in the city.

“Mother isn’t quite herself today…” Johnny imitates and V laughs a little, relaxing some as she steps into the creepy floorboards in the upstairs hallway.

“Just don’t - don’t go right now, okay?”

“I won’t,” Johnny keeps his tone casual, but he means it. This whole situation is messed up even by their standards and he can’t blame her for being a little freaked. 

“Oh, thank fuck,” she says when she finds the computer in a cramped little office. V wastes no time shutting down the security system and heading straight back to the window she came in. 

She brings the desk chair with her and awkwardly wedges it out of the window with her. Then she lets it slide down the slope of the roof where it lands on the mines below. Nothing happens, and her optics show they’re definitely shut down.

“Not takin’ chances,” she clarifies before climbing down to her feet. 

River approaches carefully, taking care not to step on the mines anyway. 

“Jesus, V, are you-” he looks her over.    
  
“I’m fine, c’mon,” she waves him off and heads for the barn door. 

River kicks the door down and it bashes almost clean off its hinges. 

As soon as V's eyes adjust to the light in the stables and it becomes clear what’s going on, Johnny actually feels a little sick. It’s by far the most fucked up thing he’s ever seen and he'll bet the same is true for her.  Human beings, all teenage boys or young men, lay on gurneys, hooked up to machines through bags on their heads.

“Oh, fuck,” her voice wobbles as she looks around. There are way too many.

“Jesus Christ,” River looks shaken too.

“Find Randy, I’m gonna unhook them,” her hands shake a little when she runs to the first stable and tries to undo the machine. The metal bar is jammed though, “fuck, it’s locked!”

“Randy! He’s down here!”

V runs to River, past the stables of some living, some dead.

“He’s hanging in there, we made it! V, shut down the machine, can’t unlink him otherwise,” River frantically pulls at the bar but it doesn’t budge.

“On it,” V runs up the stairs to the office where that fucking cartoon plays on a little TV. The place is like a birds nest, surveying his kingdom. Sick bastard. She manages to shut down the machine, nausea in her stomach and pulls her pistol only to bash the butt into that TV screen and knock the cartoon off for good. 

River is calling for backup back in the main room and removing the pipe from Randy’s mask. 

V gets to work doing the same, crisscrossing from stable to stable, pulling the machinery free and checking their pulses. 

In the end, they save a few, Randy included, but V is shaken by the ones they haven’t. Some are ice cold, dead for days.

“Fuck,” she curses when she checks another nonexistent pulse. Johnny wishes he could think of something comforting to say. 

“V! Fucking thing isn’t coming loose, help me!” River calls. V rushes down the aisle back to him and helps him tug at the bar until it finally releases and she can take off Randy’s mask. He’s shivering, convulsing a little, but alive.

“He’s okay, River,” V lays Randy’s head down gently, “drugs in his system, but he’s okay.” 

“Oh,” River lets out a shaky breath and covers his face with his hands, “thank god.” He puts a hand on the railing and rests his weight, looking like he might collapse. 

V nods. This, at least, is something that makes this situation worth it. 

"Gonna get some fresh air, okay? But I'm not leavin' yet," V leaves a tap on his shoulder and he nods in understanding. 

The cavalry has arrived by the time they get outside and V’s trigger finger itches at being surrounded by so many cops. They’re pleased with her, though, shaking her hand and thanking her for her assistance, someone even hands her a cup of coffee. 

“Gonna give you a commendation next,” Johnny yawns, sitting on the hood of a cop car. It’s getting light out, now, night has turned into day and they’re both exhausted.

V snorts and leans beside him, sipping the coffee, “Maybe I’m made for a career in law enforcement.”

They watch the trauma team ambulance carrying the living boys to fly off en route to the hospital. Joining the police is too far, but it does feel good to do something helpful for a change. 

River looks as exhausted as she feels when he approaches, but relieved beyond belief. 

“We did it, huh? Supercops.” V says.   


“Yep. But I’m not about to leave it like this,” River stands close and talks quietly, tone a little darker than she’d expected, “the horror that bastard inflicted… Can’t let it go.”

“What you gonna do? Zero him?” V’s sceptical about that. 

“Exactly. Squeeze the life out of him with my bare hands. Sick fuck has to die.”

Well, shit.

V is taken aback for a moment. She hadn’t expected that from him. “Not gonna get to be a cop if they find out, you know?”

“I know. Not sure I wanna be a cop anymore anyway,” River leans on his hands against the car. 

“Yeah?”

“Never would’ve found this place if we hadn't gone rogue. Randy, all those boys, would’ve died like that,” River shakes his head, “it’s not right.” 

V nods. She can’t disagree, and she doesn’t really know him well enough to talk through his life decisions.

They stand quietly for a moment, she finishes off her coffee. 

“Listen,” River looks at her and turns so his back is resting against the car instead, “I gotta ask. Now all this is done… Can I call you again?” 

“For…”

“Just to call,” he rubs the back of his neck, “hang out, maybe.”

“Like friends?” V knows full well that’s not what he means. 

“No.” He says bluntly, a small smile at the corner of his lips. 

“Least you’re honest,” V laughs a little bit. Johnny feels a weird pit in his stomach. 

“V, you’re - I don’t have to tell you what you are... Sure I’m not the first gonk trippin’ over his feet for you. Just can’t leave without giving it one last shot.”

Johnny watches the back of V’s head as she glances down at her shoes then up at River. He honestly has no idea what she’s going to say, but if she agrees Johnny is going to fucki-

“I’m with someone,” V says and it doesn’t even sound like a lie, she sounds so straight forward Johnny almost believes it too. His heart picks up a little. 

“Oh, right,” River looks disappointed but he takes it in stride. 

“Yeah, it’s… You’re a good looking guy, obviously, and sure, you’d be better looking without the badge.”

River chuckles a bit.

“But, yeah, gettin’ pretty serious with someone.” V doesn’t even look Johnny’s way, but she doesn’t have to. 

“Fair enough,” River says, nodding. He’s not going to ask again, it’s obvious. Johnny wants to bottle that disappointment and chug it. “Listen, forget that, s'not important. What you did here was, though. I can’t thank you enough, V, seriously.”

“Don’t mention it,” V holds out her hand for him to shake and he looks at it for a second before doing so. 

They part ways, and V finally calls her car so she can go home and collapse into bed. 

Johnny doesn’t feel as tired as he did before. 

“Who’re you _with_ , V?” Johnny can’t help but tease, appearing in the passenger seat. 

“Shut up.” She rolls her eyes. 

“S’what you said. Said it was pretty serious.”

“Just the easiest thing to say to let him down easy,” she insists.    
  
“You could’ve just let him down hard, would’ve been funny,” Johnny puts his foot up on the dashboard.   


“He’s not so bad,” V yawns widely, “not as much of a boy scout as I thought.” 

Oh, shit, shit, she does like him.

“Hm,” is all Johnny can get out - a noncommittal grunt in his throat. 

“What?”

Johnny can feel himself picking a fight. Can’t stop it. 

“Wonderin’ if you might’ve considered it if I wasn’t in your head,” he picks at some loose leather on the crease by his knee. 

“Considered what?”

“Climbin’ that fuckin’ tree trunk of a guy,” Johnny points over his shoulder, trying not to sound as pissed as the idea makes him feel. 

“What gave it away? Me shooting him down? Not returning his interest? Being kind of a bitch to him?”

“All things that would make conquering you even more satisfying for him,” Johnny points out. 

Then, shit. He realises what he said and that they’re in one of those long pauses where V just looks at him. 

“ _ Conquering _ me?”

“V-”

“No, ‘conquering me.’ Those were the words you just used.”

“Well, that’s what dudes see when they look at you. A challenge. Gorgeous and dangerous like Mount fuckin’ Everest.”

“Oh, now you’re comparing me to a fuckin’ mountain, that’s great, thanks,” she gesticulates a lot when she’s mad, barely has her hands on the wheel.   


“You know what the fuck I mean,” Johnny crosses his arms. 

“Yeah, I do, and what you mean is making you sound like a prick,” she snaps. 

Johnny pauses. Okay, maybe he does sound like a prick.

“You tellin’ me you seriously would never consider fucking that guy?”

“Are you sure  _ you _ don’t want to fuck him? You sure are talking about it a lot,” V looks at him incredulously.

“Deflecting,” Johnny says. 

V sighs heavily. 

“River isn’t an ugly guy. Maybe if I met him in a bar or somethin’ yeah, we might fuck based on looks alone. But I’ve gotten to know him a little, right? And I’m just not into him.”

Johnny goes quiet ‘cause he can’t think of a comeback. She’s right. She really couldn’t have made it any clearer to the guy or to Johnny that she’s not interested. He’s coming off insecure, needs to shut up. 

“Don’t hold back on my account, already told you-” Of course, he’s never been able to shut up when he should. 

“Already told  _ you _ I’m not into River. Told you that a few times, now.”

“Yeah,” Johnny says dumbly, looking out of the window. They’d just looked good together. Johnny and V don’t look like anything together, no one can see him.

And they  _ aren’t _ together. Not like  _ that _ . So he’s being a fucking idiot. 

He looks at V and she’s chewing the inside of her mouth like she does when she’s thinking, the wheels turning in her mind. 

“Not much interested in screwin’ anyone else right now, okay? While you’re around it just -” She says eventually. “Know I can. Just don’t want to.”   


Johnny’s mood lifts several degrees. That odd flutter in his stomach again. Just hearing her say that makes him feel so much better than it should.

“Why’s that?” He asks. V’s fighting off a little smile, looking out of the front window.

They’re back in the city proper, almost home. 

“Perfectly satisfied,” she shrugs a shoulder. That’s what Johnny likes to hear. 

“Ah - you’re saying you don’t have to go out for it when you can get that preem, top-shelf, 5-star dick at home,” 

“Not exactly what I was sayin’ but you can go ahead and keep talkin’ yourself hard anyway.”

Johnny laughs a little and realises a pressure is lifting off his shoulders. Relief. 

They pull into the parking lot below her building and Johnny gets the feeling he should say something. She has just been honest, so he should be honest too. He  _ wants _ to be honest. 

“V,” Johnny looks over at her as she shuts off the engine.

“Mmhm?” 

“Glad you’re not thinking of fucking somebody else,” he tells her. 

Her tired eyes brighten a little, he could swear, “Yeah?” Her voice is quiet and soft. 

“Yeah.” He nods and he reaches across to kiss her because it feels like the right thing to do. He uses his organic hand to move her hair behind her ear so it doesn’t snag and feels the soft skin of her ear when he does. It’s a sweet kiss. That's the only word for it. They can’t make the pretence it’s about sex, that it’s a means to the end or they’re caught up in the moment. They’re exhausted, it’s been a shit day, and he wants to kiss her gently. 

Then her phone rings. Her phone fucking rings.

Johnny sighs and rests his forehead against hers.

“One day, I’ll burn it, promise,” she sighs before answering. 

Turns out it's the worst phone call she could get. Takemura. 

“V, the parade date has been set. Are you ready to meet Hanako Arasaka?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lovely commenters and kudosers, I love you.
> 
> Next chapter is going to be much quicker and things will be getting juicy/hectic.


	6. Hanako Ara-fuckin'-Saka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long one!

It’s a good thing, V supposes, that she is even still capable of feeling nervous; heart’s still definitely pumping, blood still flowing. Ice queen, she is not. 

She’s done a lot of dangerous stuff in her life - shit ranging from mildly dubious to outright insane. This, trying to get around Arasaka’s most elite security forces to get to one of the most well-protected people in the world? Yeah, this needs its own category. 

Johnny is quiet as she gets ready to meet Takemura for the parade, just sitting on the bed with his knee bouncing. She isn’t sure if her nerves are bleeding into him or if they’re only his own, but he’s edgy. 

“Remember what Misty said about not doing this?” Johnny says eventually, watching her strap the bulletproof vest on over her bra. She pauses as she tightens the straps. “Option’s still on the table.”

She pauses for a moment and glances at him. 

“We’ve tried to figure out another solution,” V puts a long sleeved black top on over the vest, “come up empty, ‘less you count Doc’s million eddies for a 15% chance as an option.” 

“It is,” Johnny says. V turns around to look at him properly then. Since when?

“Seriously? You sure didn’t think so before,” she can’t tell if he’s trying to pick a fight, or what he’s getting at. All she knows is she’s not in the mood to argue. She’s about to do something she really doesn’t want to do for an option she doesn’t even want to take; she feels like some little prey animal trapped in a corner and she does not need him making it harder. 

“I know - it’s not -” Johnny gets up, and she realises he’s not trying to pick a fight at all. He  _ is _ nervous and he’s having trouble getting his words out, which is odd for him, “just want you to know that you don’t have to do this. You can say fuck it and keep looking for another way.”

He looks her straight in the eye, and there’s no pretence there, no cool guy bullshit at all. He can feel that she’s scared and he’s trying to give her a way out. 

There’s a little clench in her chest because it feels like he actually does care about her. 

“Johnny…” She shakes her head, “I don’t have enough time to keep searching. Soon enough, I’m gonna start getting really sick. Already not feelin’ my best… Know this seems like a desperate move, and it is, but we’ve come too far not to try it.” 

Even as she’s saying it she feels that deep uncertainty in the pit of her stomach. It’s her biological imperative to live, every cell in her body screams at her to keep trying, keep scratching at all possibilities even though she knows asking Arasaka for help is a mistake. 

It’s a mistake. 

Still, as she said, she’s come this far. 

Johnny nods and glances down at his boots, then back up at her; his adam’s apple moves in a swallow, “Whatever it takes for you to keep kickin’.” 

Then he’s gone. He leaves her to get ready in peace and collect herself.

V puts on her stretchy leather pants, the ones that give her the best range of movement but that can still take a beating. On her feet go her favourite boots, chunky soled, worn, but capable of kicking in a head or two, she knows from experience.

If possible, they’re doing it quietly, so she hides her twin pistols in her rib holsters, covers them with her leather jacket and hopes to god she doesn’t end up needing them. The knives are more important. One in each boot and a folding butterfly in her pocket. 

Again, if everything goes to plan, she’s hoping her years as a thief will get her where she needs to go with only one of the blades wet. A couple of MaxDoc’s in her pockets and some wound repair spray, just in case. 

Once her hair is up off her neck, V switches off the radio and leaves the apartment. No time for nerves anymore. She can do this, she can do this, she can do fucking anything. She’s  _ V _ , she’s the merc you call for the jobs no one can finish, she’s a shadow, she’s the most dangerous thing that’s ever been in your house and you didn’t know she was there.

Yeah, telling herself all that works a little.

She takes her bike to the parade area and parks where she can get back to it easily.

The streets are already busy and there are a few huge hummingbird holograms floating overhead already. V moves through the crowd, glancing around for Arasaka guards - if they’re mixed with the rabble they’re doing a good job of blending. 

Takemura is easy to spot when she gets to the upper levels. He might not have his luxuries anymore, but the guy has an air about him - rich and proper in a way that’s hard to cover and hard to fake.

“Got your back, but I still don’t trust this fuck,” Johnny chimes in as she approaches him.

“Duly noted, several times over,” V says in her head before leaning on the railing next to Takemura, “fancy meeting you here.”

“V, just in time,” he doesn’t smile with his mouth much, just a little crinkle at the corners of his eyes.

“What for? I’m just here for the parade.” Bothering Takemura is helping her relax a little. Faking it ‘til she makes it.

“Glad to know your sense of humour is still intact. I assume it was a joke, too, when you told me that Tokyo Garden served decent food.”

V chuckles a little at the grimace on his face, “Didn’t do it for you?”

“I weep for your tastebuds,” he says, leaning his forearms on the barrier and looking up at the holograms above, “this is just the preshow, the parade will soon start. Take this shard, I’ll show you the plan.”

Not much has changed from when they last spoke. Three snipers, and Takemura has figured out where they all are - just requires a lot of climbing across dangerous heights, which is fantastic. She’ll get to the security room, turn off the cameras on the float so Takemura and jump on and talk to her, then they’ll delta out of the emergency exit.

She takes out the shard and hands it to him, “Cake.” 

Takemura looks dubious as he tucks it back into his pocket, “I cannot tell what is serious and what is bravado with you.”

“Me neither, to be honest, don’t worry about it. Plan’s fucked up, but I’m here. Ready to do this.” 

“I know,” Takemura puts his hand on her shoulder, “and I thank you for this.”

It’s sincere, and she appreciates it. Least he might get something good out of this, even if she doesn’t. She gives him a small smile and taps his fingers on her shoulder. 

“Thank me when we get it done,” she says, and takes the earpiece he hands her, “stay safe, Goro,” V sends him a wink, the picture of casualness, before she heads for the elevator to the upper floor. 

Only when she’s alone does she let herself release a long, steadying breath. 

“I am in position,” Takemura says in the earpiece, “the floats have started to move. Remember not to attract the attention of Arasaka drones. I also spotted a netrunner in an Arasaka uniform. She is somewhere, hidden.”

“Bettin’ she’s in the security room I’m heading for,” V speaks quietly when she steps out of the elevator, scanning the crowd for threats, “I’m making my way up, first sniper must be close.” 

She moves through the people who are looking up at the parade with awe. It is pretty amazing, V raises her hand to watch one of the falling petal holograms disappear in her palm - she might stop to enjoy it more if she weren’t about to stick a knife in some guy’s neck. 

Someone bumps her shoulder, just drunk, not a threat, and slurs her apology before catching up with her giggling friends. V keeps making her way up flights of stairs until she gets to a set of double doors. A maintenance shaft, a ladder. Perfect spot for a sniper.

“I have eyes on him,” Takemura says, “he is watching the crowd, not his back. Step like a thief.” 

V climbs the ladder, “You know me.”

The radio the sniper wears gives his position away when she climbs up the walkways to the exterior of the building. He’s up in front of a billboard, rifle in hand, and he doesn’t hear her when she carefully steps up behind him. 

There’s no time for threats here, she gives him a second and he’ll call in backup, so she wraps her arm around his helmet to tip his head back and slips the knife there. One down. She whips off the thick of the blood from the blade and sticks it back in her boot. 

A trip across a precarious walkway, then she’s back in the crowd, pushing through the crowd to the next elevator up. 

She looks down at her hand, checking its steadiness. There’s not a tremble to be found, that’s how she knows she’s deep in the adrenaline, square in the zone. Might get a bit harder when she’s twenty more floors up. 

“Was some impressive shit, there, V,” Johnny appears in the elevator and she takes the chance to lean back against the wall beside him and catch her breath for a moment.

“You bein’ nice to me just in case I get clipped by the next one?” She smirks.

“Take the compliment. I’ll still tell you the next time I think you’re being stupid,” he pushes his sunglasses up to his head.

“Appreciate that,” V says. 

Takemura patches her into the radio signal from the Arasaka security team, then, says it’s important, “It is Oda, I will be listening too.”

“Again. Security is substandard! It meets none of our norms! Hanako-sama should not be here!” Oda snaps at someone, just a little fuzzy in here ear. 

“You questioning Yorinobu’s orders? Do your damn job.” Another voice chimes in, husky, vaguely familiar, but she can’t put her finger on why. 

“Understood, over and out,” Oda says, then the line clicks off.

The elevator stops, the doors slide open, and V is about to get out when her own fist collides with the metal wall of the elevator against her will. Pain shoots from her knuckles up to her elbow. 

“I know that borged-out ogre!” Johnny gets out, back out into the parade. “Adam-fucking-Smasher!”

“Johnny, my fucking hand,” she hisses, glancing around at the stragglers who are watching the parade from this less-preem vantage, then down at her pinkening knuckles. It shakes her that he can even do that, “guy who zeroed you, right?”

“Guy!? Motherfucker’s barely human!” Johnny paces up and down in front of her as he only does when he’s really pissed. V can feel the emotion radiating off him, momentarily forgetting about what she’s supposed to be doing. “But hey - know what? I’m glad he’s here. Seein’ as I woke up in a world where Saburo’s already eaten it, I’ll have to be satisfied with Smasher.”

“Jesus, Johnny, I don’t have time for this,” she shakes herself and walks away from him; there are still two fucking snipers she has to deal with.

He appears in front of her though, looking vaguely manic.

“Don’t have time for the guy that fuckin’ killed me? You serious?” 

She glances around, making sure no one is looking at her talking to thin air. 

“I’ll have time for him if I see him. I’ll happily rip the guy’s fuckin’ head off, he’s scum. Right  _ now,  _ this second, no, I don’t have time,” V moves around him and heads for the next maintenance area, “you hurt my fucking hand, by the way.” 

V’s not lying. She remembers Smasher from that day in Yorinbu’s office and from Evelyn’s braindance and she will happily clip him any day. Not the time though. Also, doesn’t make it okay for him to lash out like that. 

Takemura’s voice comes in, thank god she’d kept that conversation internal, “You should see a ladder nearby. You can reach the next sniper through the maintenance area there.”

“Okay.” V tries to get her head back in it, climbs the ladder.

It’s dark at the top, a couple of disused catwalks to get her where she needs to go.

“Catwalk don’t look too stable. Sure Takemura didn’t plan a little whoopsy-daisy for ya?” Johnny appears beside her.

She ignores him. He’s getting on her nerves and it’s not like she has any other route anyway. 

She starts across the bridge. It’s stable for her first few steps, so she walks more confidently. A mistake. Her foot finds the next section of the platform and it falls away under her. Her stomach drops out, for a second, she is  _ sure _ she’s about to drop however many floors to the streets below. What a shitty way to go out, just a smudge on the asphalt. 

“Fuck!” An arm catches her around the waist and pulls her. She and Johnny both fall back onto their asses on the stable part of the walkway. V had been calm before, but her heart is fucking racing now. 

“Oh my god,” she looks down at the space where the catwalk used to be and the insanely long fall below. 

“Jesus Christ, V, why the fuck didn’t you listen to me?” Johnny snaps behind her; V turns her head to look at him caught somewhere between defensive and grateful.    
  
“I thought you were just being spiteful,” her voice has a little shake to it.   


“What?” Johnny has a furrow on his brow. 

“‘Cause you don’t like Takemura and you’re pissed at me!” She says it like it’s obvious, still sitting between his legs on the broken catwalk. 

“Wasn’t pissed at you for fuck’s sake I was just pissed,” he says. 

“Well, you seemed pretty pissed at me.” 

“I’m not gonna give you bad advice, V. I tell you the walkway looks shaky you fuckin’ listen to me,” Johnny points at her hard. 

“Alright! Fine,” V concedes, because yeah, she did just almost die instead of listening to him. 

They both get up and she collects herself, brushing off her pants and trying to get her head back in it. Second time Johnny’s saved her life and she still isn’t sure what to say about it. 

“Sorry about your hand,” Johnny says, not looking at her, “thought it was mine - you know, I - didn’t mean to, you know.”

“I know. Hand’s fine,” she waves him off and Johnny nods, looking down at his boots. 

They don’t know what to say to each other. V thinks she should probably say thank you, but it doesn’t seem like enough. 

“Smasher is as good as dead.  _ Know _ that, right?” That seems better than thank you and it seems like something he needs to hear. He has her back, and she has his, and she means that. 

Johnny nods again and she goes to the edge of the broken walkway.

“Thanks for savin’ my life there, by the way,” V jumps across the gap.

“Know you just wanted to play damsel in distress,” Johnny says, back in her head again. She snorts.

Back to work. 

The height she’s at becomes a lot more intimidating when she’s out on the exterior of the building. She watches her step more, keeps using her optics to get a good look at her path. The next sniper is easier, the third is the hardest, across to another building and through a shitload of guards.

Then it’s time for the netrunner, so they can finally take control of the float. Dangerous as the whole thing is, she at least feels more confident now she’s on familiar ground. Big, unfinished apartment buildings are much more her speed than parkouring across precarious heights.

She doesn’t even have to kill the netrunner, she’ll just pull her link and put her in a sleeper hold. 

The room is huge and cold, about three floors of unbuilt apartments, bare concrete all around her. V lets the doors close quietly around her and spots the netrunner immediately, sitting on the ground in front of an array of computers and screens, fully in the net. 

V keeps her steps light as she gets right behind her. She pulls her link at the same time as she wraps her right arm around her neck and secures it with her hand so her grip is tight and unyielding. She knows the right pressure to knock a person out, and soon the runner falls limp to the ground. 

“Thank Christ,” V whispers to herself in relief that the worst is over. All she has to do is hack the computer and turn off the float’s surveillance, job done. 

Thoughts like that must be a jinx, because she only just hears the hum of an electrified mantis blade when Oda jumps from the scaffolding above and slashes at her. There’s no stopping it, the hot blade cuts into her forearm, right through her leather jacket and her shirt to the skin there. Blindingly painful, an electric sting. 

“Fuck!” V dives out of the way of the next swing and the blade crashes to the ground beside her, she rolls out of the way of the next, but he pins his left to the ground beside her head and raises the other.

V pulls the blade from her pocket and stabs him in the gut; it’s a smaller knife than she'd want, too small, but it’s enough that he falls back in pain when she twists it. When he comes at her again she’s ready. 

She pulls her pistol, shoots him in the face, and Oda is dead just like that with a butterfly knife in his gut and a bullet hole under his eye. 

“Fuck me,” V looks at the now bleeding slash on her arm and down at the dead body in front of her. It had happened so fast, shit… She hadn’t even been planning on killing the fucking guy. 

“Screw him, got what he fuckin’ deserved,” Johnny’s voice seethes in her head. 

“What happened?” Takemura’s voice is in her ear, too, he sounds like he knows exactly what just happened.

“Oda.” Is all V says. 

Takemura lets out a long breath, “Is he dead?”

V is way too pumped up to be tactful, too angry, too in pain to give a shit that she just killed his friend. 

“Dead as fuck,” V steps over his body to finally go to the computer. 

Shit her arm hurts bad.

“V…” Johnny has appeared. He sounds different, looking at her in a way he never has before as he crouches down beside her while she hacks. 

“I’m fine,” she fights off a flinch. 

“Course you are,” he says without sarcasm, “made of fuckin’ steel.”

V gives him a small smile although her teeth almost chatter against the pain. She’s successful at getting into the float’s surveillance, and she sees Hanako Arasaka on the screen in front of her. Someone is in the room with her, but they’re speaking Japanese, so V doesn’t understand. 

“All yours, Goro,” V says once the stranger leaves. 

Then she watches them speak, even though again she has no idea what’s being said. 

What she does understand is when Takemura pulls a gun and shoots Hanako with a tranquillizer that knocks her out and has her falling into his arms. 

“The fuck?” Johnny is as shocked as her, watching the screen. 

“V, run!” Takemura looks towards the camera and V does not need to be told twice. 

“Oh, fuck me,” two huge drones appear at the windows in front of her, alerting to her presence, and she scrambles to her feet and runs full tilt to the staircase. No fucking way is she getting trapped in a slow elevator right now. 

“Knew we couldn’t trust the fucker!” Johnny spits. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” V takes the stairs two, three at a time, practically falling over her feet. She’s got time to get back to her bike, but not much, every Arasaka bastard will be on her in no time now. 

It’s a relief as soon as she’s on her bike and tearing through the streets full throttle. She has no idea if they’re chasing her, all she knows is she’ll make herself hard to catch. 

There’s fuzz in her ear for a few seconds, then finally Takemura’s voice again, “V, are you secure?”

“For fuckin’ now! What did you do?” She looks over her shoulder and thankfully does not see the blazing red of pursuing Arasaka guards. 

“She was not listening. I needed more time,” he sounds out of breath. 

“You’ve fucked us,” she snaps, angry beyond belief that he never told her he’d planned for this. 

“I can fix this, V. Come to me, I’ll send you the coordinates.” 

“How about I just delta the fuck home?”

“You wanted to talk to Hanako-sama, did you not? This is your chance,” Takemura says. 

V lets out a breath and takes a sharp right, half-focussed on him and half-focussed on not wiping out while she tries to escape. 

“Okay…  _ Shit _ .”

** ** **

Hanako Arasaka might be the most beautiful thing V’s ever seen. It’s not an attractiveness thing either - she’s just never seen anyone so flawless, the woman is literally gilded. She looks like someone who’s never had a hard day in her life, never had to lift a finger for a thing. Porcelain and gold, shining and perfect. She looks so wrong in this dingy old apartment, as if the place is rejecting her presence as much as she is. 

V looks at her, at the sum of all her parts, the labour, the death, the exploitation that goes into her beautiful existence, and she realises that she hates her. She hadn’t anticipated hating her _ this much.  _

Still, she’s here, now. Still in extreme pain, an open slash on her arm. 

“I was there that night at Konpeki Plaza. Saw your dad die right in front of me. Wasn’t poison, either, your brother Yorinobu choked him to death,” V tells her, since that's what she’s here for. 

Hanako hasn’t looked at V since she sat down; she keeps her eyes to the wall and her expression blank. Then her shoulders shift and she glances at V for just a moment before she speaks.

“You must be mad to think I will listen to such nonsense,” she says, then goes back to looking past V, like V isn’t even a person at all. Street trash. Not worth listening to, not worth a thing. 

“Mad’s about right,” V takes her cigarettes from her jacket pocket and lights one despite the look Takemura gives her for doing it, “slotted your Relic in my head, died, woke up with Johnny Silverhand in my head no way of gettin’ him out so yeah, might’ve gone a little mad.”

“You  _ died _ ?” Hanako looks at her then. 

“Uh-huh, and I’ll die again ‘less I get this dealt with,” she blows out a puff of smoke, “so I’ve got approximately dick to lose, whereas you’ve got the integrity of your corp, your family, a fuckload else to slip out of your gilded fingers.”

“Hanako-sama. V is living proof of the terrible crime your brother committed! You must know that I would never do something like this if I did not know her story to be true.” Takemura looks desperate while he speaks to her, “We can confirm every word she speaks in front of the board if you just help her with the Relic.” 

She is silent, looking by V. For a moment, she gets the nasty urge to slap her,  _ make _ her listen. When Takemura steps closer to her, Hanako looks down at her hands steadfastly, wordlessly telling him that she is not going to listen to him, either. 

V meets Takemura’s eyes, he shakes his head at her, clearly feeling this going nowhere, too. 

As she’s about to say something else, maybe snap her fingers to get her attention, there’s a sound in the hallway.

“Did you hear that?” Takemura asks.

“I’ll take a look,” V gets up and takes her pistol from its holster, approaching the door steadily. She presses her eye to the peephole, sees nothing, and opens the door slowly. Nothing. No one. 

Bullets tear through the side of the building, a deafening explosion shakes the ground, and she falls two floors and onto her back, unconscious.

Ringing in her ears when she comes back into consciousness, Johnny’s hand on her shoulder, shaking her. Was that all a dream? Is this-

“Get the fuck up, V, now!” Then he’s tapping her face with his ‘ganic hand. “No fucking way V, no fucking way, get up.”

She grunts in pain and pushes herself up to her hands. The building is chaos, gunfire, smoke and rubble. V can barely tell where it’s coming from, around her and above her. Is all this for them? How is Takemura still fighting?

Johnny helps her to her feet and she’s dizzy when she stands, the back of her head pounding with pain.

“No more time to waste, find a window and delta,” Johnny grabs her elbows and shakes her a bit, trying to pull her from her daze. 

V looks down the hallway, her path out must be through one of those apartments.

But Takemura.

“Goro’s still up there, I can’t leave him,” she says, still dizzy. 

Fuck. Her head hurts worse than her arm, now. She grinds her teeth against the pain and takes a MaxDoc from her pocket to puff on. It does its job, alleviates the pain long enough for her to put one foot in front of the other.

“You can and you fuckin’ are, guy’s toast.” 

V ignores him and takes out her pistol, turning to find a way up through the blasted apartments to him.

Johnny does something he never has before. Not happy with just suggesting what she should do, he grabs her around the waist and pulls her back.

“There’s no fucking time!” He shouts over the gunfire. 

Instinctively, V throws back an elbow and he grunts in pain and releases her. She thinks she might have hit his nose, but she doesn’t have time to check. She doesn't care what Johnny thinks, she's not leaving Takemura to die like this. 

The place looks like it’s about to crumble. V steps over rubble and coughs against the smoke. She takes out a few guards on her way - thank fuck, they’re confused by the madness and smoke too, just about clocking who she is before she pops one-off through their eye.

“Gonna die for this fuck,” Johnny sounds immensely pissed in her head, “bein’ so fucking stupid.”

She manages to fight her way back up, very aware that the first bullet through the window could’ve clipped Takemura until she finally hears his shouts. 

The side of the room they were in is blasted away, just an open hole, and Takemura is ducked behind the kitchen counter and reloading a machine gun. V steps over the pile of bodies and clips the three guards coming in the door, dodges and ducks their gunfire, until she’s down at Takemura’s side. 

“V, you should not have come back, you’ll die here with me,” Takemura looks gutted.

“Not dyin’ in this shithole,” V quickly reloads and lifts her head to take out another that runs in, “got an idea. Trust me?”

“Yes.” 

The influx pauses and Takemura follows her to where she looks out of the open hole in the wall. Fuck, this is stupid. They’re two floors up, potential ankle breaking height. Maybe not, though.

“You are not suggesting we jump,” Takemura says in disbelief. 

“Tell me your better idea,” V looks at him and does not wait for an answer. She lowers herself out with her hands and doesn’t look down when she lets go and rolls when she hits, displacing the impact. It hurts, but she thinks she’s fine. It’s hard to tell with the adrenaline. 

Takemura follows her lead, dropping next to her. 

They’re in a back alley, almost safe, so close. 

RELIC MALFUNCTION DETECTED

A new kind of pain tears through her head, different from the dull one that came from the smash before. Immediately, it makes her want to puke and her vision goes hazy. 

“Not now, not now,” she falls to her stomach in the mouth of the alley. 

“V!” Vaguely, she hears Takemura’s voice and feels his hands on her shoulders. 

“Go, Goro!”

“Absolutely not,” Takemura helps her to her feet and pulls her down the alley with him at his side. There’s that familiar disturbance in her vision, she mentally reaches for Johnny, but if he’s talking, she can’t hear it. 

“We have to split up,” she says.

“I know, where is your bike?” 

They get to it and the haze starts to clear, just about. 

“Can you ride in this condition?” Takemura looks her in the eye, blood and sweat all over his face. 

“Yes, now go,” she shoves his shoulder, “don’t make me have done all that for nothin’,”

Takemura nods and hightails it away. She doesn’t wait to see where he goes, just speeds off herself. Needs to lie low somewhere, this is way, way too much heat. Fuck, she can barely see. 

“Just keep goin’ V, gonna be fine.” She isn’t sure if that’s her or Johnny, their voices blend in the technical disturbance in her head. 

** ** ** 

A truly disgusting motel in the middle of nowhere feels about right for the situation. The room is dark and filthy; peeling wallpaper on the walls, stains on the carpet, but V doesn’t give a shit. She just needs to sit down, patch up her arm with the repair spray and some half-clean rags and catch her fucking breath. 

She and Johnny don’t speak for a while. Maybe they’re both shaken from the chaos of the night. Like when she was getting ready, V can’t make out how he’s feeling. He’s just sitting on the dresser, watching her grit her teeth as she patches up. It’s quiet in the room and it’s quiet all around them. They’re just outside the city, hopefully somewhere no one comes except joytoys and needleheads. 

When she’s done, he comes to lie down on the bed behind her. The sheets aren’t as bad as she might have thought, they just look old and well-worn. 

“Sorry about your nose,” she adjusts so her back is against the foot of the bed, facing him. Only just has the strength to do that, every muscle feels pulled. 

“Yeah, I forgot, fuck you for that,” Johnny says, touching his of course perfectly fine nose. 

“You were wrong about me not being able to save him though,” she points out. 

“You nearly died, I wasn’t wrong. Fuckin’ dumb luck you’re here now,” Johnny crosses his arms across his stomach, face barely visible in the low light of the room which is illuminated only by the streetlight outside getting through the curtains. 

“Dumb luck’s what I’ve been livin’ on since birth,” V forces half a smile. It’s a fact that’s getting less funny. 

“True, that,” Johnny says.   


Then he moves so he’s sitting next to her on the bed and she enjoys the familiar warmth of his arm at her side. 

“You’re pale,” he says, looking over her face. 

“I believe it,” V sighs. She  _ feels _ pale. Feels fucking drained. 

She isn’t expecting it when Johnny’s flesh hand reaches up to touch her cheek. It’s such a gentle touch that she didn’t realise how much she needed. 

“V…” he swallows, “whatever happens next is your choice, I know. My only two cents is that I don’t want you to fuckin’ die.” 

They meet eyes and V gets the feeling she’s seeing him in a way maybe no one else ever has. She doesn’t know what to say, all she knows is that her heart is thudding and the pain in her body seems a bit further away than it did a moment ago. 

Whatever she’s about to say is lost, because the sound of tires right outside disturb them and Johnny’s hand drops to his lap. 

“Car,” V pushes herself to her feet, ignoring the ache, and picks up her pistol from the dresser.

“At this hour, in this place? Fuck.” Johnny stands up too. 

There’s a soft knock at the door and V approaches it slowly, finger on the trigger. 

“I have a message for V,” a surprisingly casual female voice says on the other side of the door, “are you sleeping? Time to get up.”

Gun pointed square at about where the person’s head will be, V opens it. A blonde woman dressed in a nice suit and smoking a cigarette is the only person there; she looks at the gun boredly and then back at V before breezing by her. 

“Finally, ugh… That on the wall, is that blood?” She puts her hand on her hip and glances around with her nose wrinkled.

“Uh, probably,” V lowers her gun, “probably why it’s only a 4-star place, not 5.”

The woman doesn’t laugh, just saunters over to the chair by the little table and sits down. 

“So, you got a message?” V sits down too, guard still up and gun still in hand. 

“It’ll start soon,” the woman sighs and takes a drag, “want one?”

The sight of the burning cigarette suddenly lets V know that she really does want one. 

“Yeah, thanks,” the woman takes the pack from her pocket and offers it for V to take one, “what’ll start soon?”

V lights up and the woman sets hers down in the ashtray, just looking down at her lap for a second before her eyes glaze and turn a shining orange.

“It’s doll,” Johnny leans on the wall behind the woman.

“Or a proxy,” V takes a long drag and looks over the woman, whose posture changes entirely when she lifts her chin again. 

“I must make one thing clear, I still think you are mad, but… But I can fool myself no longer, I believe you.”

Hanako. Voice and face might be different but V can tell it's her talking through the woman. 

“Great, you believe me,” V leans back in the chair, “now what?”   


“Yorinobu planted a tanto in the corporation’s very heart. I must act while the wound is fresh. And you will help me. You are living proof of his crime and treason.”

Being told she will do something has always had a way of getting V’s hackles up. As if this bitch can tell her what she  _ will _ do. 

“Your corporation’s ‘heart’ means shit to me. Tell me what you know about Mikoshi and I’ll think about helping you. See, my _actual_ heart is liable to stop any minute now,” V flicks the ash off her cigarette.

“Mikoshi…”’ ‘Hanako’ says with mild surprise, “One of my father’s flagship projects. A data fortress with servers situated on orbital stations all around the Earth. Think of it as an archive of personality constructs, digitised psyches.”

“Soul prison, got it,” V rolls her eyes. Jesus, Johnny should’ve bombed Arasaka Tower twice.

“Heh,” Johnny breathes out a little laugh, clearly hearing that thought. 

“A matter of perspective,” ‘Hanako’ says, “in any case that is not where you will find salvation. Not without extensive knowledge of the Relic and the construct creation procedure.”

“Got the schematics from Hellman. He was the one that told me this thing is eating me alive, no stopping it.”

“A surprisingly deterministic statement from a man of science,” she says, which V hates to admit, is kind of encouraging to hear. She’d taken Hellman’s word as fact all this time.

Still, Hanako needs her, could just be stringing her along.

“Made contact with Alt Cunningham too. Says she might be able to help me if she gets to Mikoshi,” V says.

“That could be very useful…” ‘Hanako’ pauses for a moment, “We should meet in person. Somewhere discreet. I will be in touch.”

The proxy sits bolt straight for a moment before her back relaxes and her eyes clear to their original colour.

“Well,” she picks up her cigarette, “that’s my job done.”

As casually as she’d walked in, she stands and leaves, closing the door behind her. V watches out the window for her car to drive away and lets out a breath. 

Johnny is still leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“Thoughts?” V asks him, unsure if the bit of nausea she’s feeling is the malfunction from before or just stress. 

“Think she’s fixing to put a leash on you,” Johnny says, “think she’d say anything to get control of the corp by exposing her brother.”

“Don’t think there’s any chance she’d help me?”

“Think there’s a chance, yeah. The form that help’ll come in? Price you might have to pay for it? That’s what skeeves me the fuck out.”

V sighs and nods. God, she really doesn’t feel well.

“Was my read too,” she says. It’s true. She just doesn’t trust the woman and she definitely does not trust the corporation, “just don’t know what el- AH!”

Pain rips through her head, worse than before, worse than _ever_ before, and it doubles her over. She coughs into her hand and feels moisture there that she almost thinks is vomit for a second. It’s not. It’s blood. Red and angry against her skin. 

“Oh shit,” she shakes and looks up at Johnny. 

Somewhere, she’s aware that this is the purest fear she’s felt for a long time. The next wave of pain has a loud ringing in her ears and it feels as if her whole body is seizing, all her muscles are cramping. She falls to the floor on her hands and knees and then next wave hits, knocking her to her back.

“Ah, Johnny,” she reaches blindly for him, vision going, “I’m fuckin’ dyi-”

“No, you’re not. I’ve got you.”

** ** ** 

Once, the clan travelled a huge stretch of the West. Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, eventually. When they could, they hugged the coast. They’d even pitch up right on the beaches sometimes, setting up their tents and caravans on the line right where the water came to. She’d loved it, the sound of the water, the feeling of sand in her toes, the fact that the air just felt so much fresher.

She swears she can smell it right now.

She can smell it right now.

Where the fuck is she, actually?

The ground under her is hard, but there’s a pillow under her head. She can hear seagulls. 

Blinking open her eyes, she sees Johnny there, standing with his hands on the stone railing of a balcony, looking over at something. He looks down at her and holds out his hand.

“Get up, Pacific’s beautiful this time of day,” he helps her to her feet and she blinks away the bleariness, looking confusedly over at the beach across the road in front of them and then down at the pillow on the ground, “would’ve laid down on a bed but the place hasn’t been running for years, didn’t want you to catch anything. Air’s better out here, anyway.”

V nods and leans on the barrier next to him, feeling like she’s been asleep for about a week. The sea air does wake her up, though, fills her lungs nicely. Johnny must’ve had to take over to bring her here, walked around in her body. 

Do they need to talk about that?

Johnny lays his hand over hers on the balcony wordlessly, still looking out over the ocean. No, they don’t need to talk about it. He saved her, again, that’s all that matters.

“Really is beautiful,” V says. Most beautiful thing she’s stopped to notice in a long time.

They’re quiet for a moment. They can just about hear the sound of the waves over the traffic. She doesn’t need to voice the fact that she almost just died for real, either; they both know it already. 

“Sole guests of the Pistis Sophia,” Johnny gestures to the place, “c’mon, wanted to show you something.”

He’s being… Different. Talking gently, walking with a slowness he doesn’t usually have. He even takes her hand as he leads her down the walkway past all the rooms like they’re a sweet couple on their honeymoon, headed to their room. Johnny is usually all hard edges and fast energy, V can’t make him out right now.

They go to the smashed open window of one of the rooms and Johnny helps her through before climbing in himself. It’s a mess, panels falling from the ceiling and the damp mattress hanging half off the bed. Smells like dank and abandonment. 

“There’s a hidey-hole where I’m standing, open it, empty it,” he says. V looks at him confusedly for a moment before doing as he asks, she gets to her knees and pulls the cover off of the vent. 

She takes out the little cardboard box there and opens it. Dog tags, no mystery as to whose.

“Johnny, are these-”

“Mine, yeah, the originals,” he touches the ones around his own neck, the ones that aren’t technically real, “yours now.”

V looks at him and down at the metal dog tags in her palm; tears prick behind her eyes.

“From the Mexican conflict?” She looks at him; he’s got an intense look, sitting on a chair in front of her. 

“Mhm,” he nods. They haven’t talked about the war much - it’s one subject he seems to stay away from with her other than the stuff she already knows from his songs. 

“Johnny, you sure-”

“Realest part of me still around,” he says and reaches down to close her fingers around them, “want you to have ‘em.”

V nods and swallows the lump in her throat. She looks at the tags in her hand and runs her thumb over the engraving. His real name. Robert John Linder. She smiles a little. 

“Maybe I should start calling you Bobby,” she meets his eye again. 

“Maybe you should go fuck yourself.”

V laughs and shakes her head. The chain is a little worn but it still has some shine; she puts them on, fastens the clasp under her hair. Johnny looks at the metal around her neck and lets out a breath. 

“Suit you.”

He holds out his hand again and helps her to her feet. 

There’s a sadness about him right now, she feels it, too. Maybe it’s because Hanako didn’t have some magic answer they were looking for. She was exactly what they expected and nothing more and the realisation that V really is going to die soon has hit them right in the face.

“What is this, Johnny?” She asks, looking around the hotel room and touching the tags resting on her chest.

Johnny sighs, “Came here after I got back from the war, after deserting. Just laid in that fuckin’ bed for days, staring at the ceiling, thinking about… Everything… Don't know how long for, just know there's probably still a dent in the shape of me in that mattress. Wasn’t long after that I changed my name and picked up a guitar and started railing against the shit I was stupid enough to fight for, once.” 

He picks up the tags and reads his own birth name there, “I didn’t need these anymore, didn’t want to be this man, but I still am, aren’t I? Just as much flesh as I am silver… Anyway, these tags are the last part of me apart from Silverhand, the me no one knows but you, to be honest. They’re a promise.”   
  
“A promise to what?” V’s throat is dry. 

“Promise that I’ll never do wrong by you, V. If it comes to it - when it comes to it - my life for yours, no question,” Johnny says it with a finality. 

“Johnny-”

“ _ V. _ You can’t die for me,” Johnny puts his hands on her upper arms and looks her dead in the eye, “of all the shit I’ve done in my life, killing you can’t be my final act. It can’t.” 

V feels the intensity of his emotion, how much he means it. But she can’t make him any kind of promise in return because the idea of him being wiped for her makes it feel like someone is tearing a knife right through her heart. 

So she offers him physical comfort instead of verbal and kisses him, closing her eyes and feeling his hair when she slips her fingers into it. He presses his lips back and lets a long breath out of his nose and his hands hold her hips. 

They pull back but not far, he leaves another kiss on her forehead. 

“You almost died a few times in the last 24 hours,” he murmurs.    
  
“Not the first time,” she shrugs a shoulder, trying to brush it off.   


“Was different, not just talking about the malfunction, the parade too. You’ve been in sticky sitch's before, just not that much.”

“Not as long as you’ve been around, but there was about as much heat when Jackie and I stole the Relic - you - from the Konpeki Plaza after Saburo died. Had to fight through the whole place while knowin’ Jack wasn’t gonna make it… Pretended like he was gonna be fine for the both of us but, I dunno, could just tell.” 

“You know how I felt, then, know what it feels like to think someone you care about is gonna die,” Johnny says, “thank fuck _ I _ was wrong.”

V feels a deep flush in her cheeks and a tingle in her fingers. 

“You care about me?”

Johnny snorts a little and rolls his eyes at her. Okay, maybe that had been a dumb question after this, but it’s just a feeling she’s not used to. Not to mention the fucking animosity they used to have to each other. 

“Care about you lots, V,” he says. 

The feeling in her heart isn’t stabbing, then, it hurts in a nice way, a pleasant, emotional clench that tells her she’s capable of way more depth of feeling than she’s ever thought. 

The realisation, standing there in front of him in that abandoned hotel room, hits her like a tonne of bricks.

She loves him. She cares about him so much because she loves him. 

But she’s quiet, she doesn’t know what to say. This isn’t a situation she’s ever been in before. Someone caring about her and caring for them in return. _Loving_ them in return. 

“Don’t have to say anythin’, not a transactional thing. Just not gonna stand here and act like I don’t give a fuck when I do. Sick of playing those games,” he says. 

“I care about you lots too, Johnny,” V lifts her hand to touch his face, feeling his beard under her palm, “if I die-”

“Not gonna die-”

She puts her finger on his lips and successfully shuts him up for a second. 

“ _ If _ I die soon…” She swallows the lump in her throat; she does not want to cry right now, “Want you to know I’m not mad at you about it, okay? Don’t resent you, don’t blame you. Just glad I got to know you.”

There’s a twitch in the corner of Johnny’s eye and he leans down to kiss her again, a sound linking of their lips. V feels warm all over, as if she’s basking in the feeling of touching someone, being with someone who gives a shit about her enough that he’d be willing to die to prove it. 

He pulls back enough to breathe for a second but keeps her close, “Good thing no one can hear us talkin’ like this… Lose all our cred."   
  
“I won’t tell anyone you got a heart, samurai,” she assures him with a smile. 

“Ditto,” he kisses her again on her lips, then her cheek. His beard rubs her skin. She doesn't mind.

“Oh, Robert, I think you could do with a shave,” she smirks. 

“Get right on that, Valerie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts and thanks to everyone who left such lovely comments on the last chapter, really kicked me into getting on with this one.
> 
> Obviously, this chapter goes along with canon a lot even though just repeating things you've already seen in-game really isn't my favourite thing to do - promise it's won't happen again so heavy there was just too much key shit to omit in this one.
> 
> Next chapter won't take long and will be a fun one. Johnny reconnecting with old friends and the two of them trying to navigate the reality of being grown ups who Like Like each other.


	7. Correcting the Universe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dude, I know I keep saying this but this chapter is very long so if you're a 3am reader I might consider bookmarking and saving for tomorrow, (even though I literally never have the self-restraint to do that).
> 
> Violence ahead and explicit sexual content like RIGHT off the bat.

V thinks if she opened her front door right now, there would probably be a few people standing there eavesdropping, muffling laughter under their palms, asking who lives there. They must’ve been at this for hours now, she isn’t even sure how many time’s orgasmed already, it’s all just a pink haze of sweating and moaning and pleasure. 

She looks at the door hazily while Johnny’s hips smack into her ass over and over and thinks it’s pretty unfair that they’re only hearing her moaning like a nasty braindance and not his ragged grunts and groans and his filthy mouth. 

“Gonna fuckin’ ruin you for anyone else you know?” He squeezes her ass with his metal hand. “Treat that pussy right, fuckin’ perfect pussy, perfect ass, perfect fuckin’...” Johnny trails off into a groan. Probably doesn’t even know he’s talking at all. 

She just moans in response, her nails scratching at the wall of the foot of the bed where her hands are keeping her from being knocked right into it with the force of his thrusts. God, it feels so good, the stretch of him, the way he hits that deep. Perfect every damn time. 

And it’s _him_ too, the sounds he makes and how he touches her. He really has ruined her for anyone else, nothing and no one else will from now on she knows it. She has to bite her lip to keep from babbling embarrassing nonsense to that effect. 

Johnny’s mouth finds her bare shoulder and he kisses and sucks at it, his thrusts get deeper and longer until he’s pushing his front against her back and her forehead presses against the wall of the bed.

“Fuck,” she curses. It’s hot, they’re both breathless and sweating on each other, “Johnny…” 

Then he slows down even more, deeper, pushing right against that spot that makes her feel like she really could pass out. When his flesh fingers find her clit she’s close to moving his hand away because she doesn’t know if she can take another. Feels so good it almost hurts. 

“Nngh, Johnny…” She quivers, grabbing his wrist. Feels oversensitive as an exposed nerve, totally consumed by him, surrounded by him and filled with him. 

“One more, baby,” he works her with his fingers, moving his hips in small movements; the ridge of his cock keeps rubbing against her g-spot. 

She makes a noise somewhere between a moan and a cry, feeling his lips kiss the back of her neck and up to her ear, where he bites the lobe just a little.

“Come on,” he groans, beard rubbing her cheek, “you’re my girl, huh?”

Her third, maybe fourth orgasm of the night hits so hard her body tries to jolt away from him and her vision goes hazy. He holds her tight, unyielding, and she’s totally lost in a pool of bliss, unaware of what sounds she’s making or who can hear her or even what planet she’s on. 

As soon as the trembles start to wear off Johnny’s pace picks up until he’s fucking her ruthlessly, chasing his own finish. She actually squeals, a broken little sound, intensely satisfied and wrung out, sensitive and sore.

V reaches back to where his head is pressed into her shoulder and grabs his hair so she can pull his lips to hers in a messy kiss, licking at his lips and his tongue. She just has to taste him, smell him, feel every part of him - fuck, she wishes she could just live in this second until she breathes her last. 

“I am your girl,” she murmurs, “your fuckin’ girl, Johnny.”

He seizes and cums in her with a loud groan, pressing his forehead against hers. She kisses him through it, swallows the sounds he makes that honestly feel like they could get her off all over again on their own. She keeps her fingers in his hair and watches the intense look in his dark eyes before they close against the pulses. 

God, she’s glad he doesn’t have to pull out. Nothing like the feeling of him spilling inside her.

Neither has the will to move for a long time after. Johnny stays draped over her, heavy weight on her back and stomach muscles twitching. 

“God damn,” Johnny pulls out of her, breathless, and leaves little kisses all the way down her spine. His beard tickles. 

V can’t talk, she feels liquid.

Johnny biting her asscheek grounds her to earth though, she hisses and jumps while he laughs at her and falls on his back. 

“Dickhead,” V laughs too, turning so she can crawl over and collapse on top of him. Her knees hurt now they’re straightened out but the rest of her body is weightless; she seriously feels like she could just pass the fuck out in the next five seconds.

“Looked tasty,” Johnny shrugs. His chest still rises and falls heavily and she can hear his heart under her ear. 

Jesus, they have been at this a long time, it wasn’t dark when they started. The bed is a fucking mess; the blanket is a bundle at the foot, the pillows are everywhere and the sheet is half off the mattress. 

After the Pistis Sophia, they knew things were different between them, that they had said way too much to take back now. But V had felt so unwell that there wasn’t really time to dwell on it - she had to go to Vik, get her arm patched up properly, listen to him scold her for not taking the blockers enough. When they were finally back at the apartment she had showered and slept and swallowed the liquid food pouches on Johnny’s insistence.

For a few days, she’s been feeling stronger, taking the blockers even though she doesn’t like to push him out. Today had been the first time he’d given in to his desire to touch her properly and they had pretty much lost themselves from there. Saying how they feel is hard, showing it is a little easier.

And they _had_ showed it, Johnny had been fucking relentless about showing it, actually. 

She leans over him to grab her cigarettes from the windowsill over the bed. Hits different right after an orgasm or three.

“How you feelin’?” He asks after she settles against his side with his arm behind her shoulders.

“Thoroughly fucked,” she says and he laughs a bit.

“Obviously. Meant-”

“Know what you meant, Johnny. I feel good, head’s clear, no nausea,” she looks up at him, “think I’m on an uptick.”

“How long will it last?” 

V shrugs, “No way of knowing. Who knows, maybe the next seventy years…”

They leave it at that. No point dwelling on the shittiness when they’ve just had such a good time. She does feel fine right now, but that’s liable to stop any second and they know it. 

She finishes her cigarette and stubs it on the ashtray on the windowsill, then she settles back into his side, like they’re a real couple or something. 

They lay quietly and listen to the ‘pop, pop, pop,’ of the finished record continuing to turn. The breeze through the window is welcome; summer’s coming - can still smell it in the air even with all the pollution.

V runs her fingers over the tattoos on Johnny’s hand and touches the metal of his rings - so real, still so real.

“Seems as good a time as any to ask you kind of a big favour,” Johnny’s voice reverberates through his chest pleasantly.

“ _Best_ time to ask me for somethin’, actually,” V smiles. He could ask her for the fuckin' moon right now and she'd figure out a way to get it. 

“Heh… Adam Smasher. Been thinkin’ about it for the past few days, considering if it’s something I can get over. Long story short, I can’t. I need the fucker zero’d and I need the borg pieces of him turned into a toilet to throw his ashes down. Then I can piss on ‘em.”

She looks up at him, “Already told you I’ll do that, Johnny. Be doin’ the world a favour as well as you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if you’re thinking about exactly how fuckin’ hard that’s going to be even finding the guy. Always on the move to wherever the Arasaka’s send him, doesn’t ever put his weapons down because he _is_ the fuckin’ weapon.”

“I know all that,” V says, “got to Hanako, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, with Takemura’s help. Hate to give the guy props but he’s smart and he knew the ways in. Need someone tough at your side. Tougher than Panam. Hell, tougher than any Aldecaldo. Need someone that knows this city better, too.”

“Thinking you’ve got someone in mind.”

“I do. Rogue,” Johnny says. V gets an uncomfortable feeling in her chest. She’d seen through Johnny’s eyes times when he and Rogue were together. Made no secret of something being between them, wasn’t shy about declaring his attraction to her. 

“Rogue, your ex...” She sits up a little. 

“Strong word,” Johnny shrugs a shoulder, sitting up too, “was never serious between us. She thought I was a fuckin’ idiot.”

“Hm,” V gets the urge to reach for a second cigarette but resists.

Johnny ducks his head to look at her face properly, “This your jealous expression?”

“Fuck off,” she rolls her eyes.

“Nah, it suits you,” Johnny looks smug, “already made it pretty clear I’m majorly into you, right? Rogue and I are ancient history, literally. Aside from anything else though, she was my friend, and I know what Smasher did fucked her up.”

V isn’t so sure about that - Rogue didn’t strike her as the sentimental type.

“Know she comes off like a bitch these days, but trust me, she gave a shit. Think you might understand being a stone cold bitch with feelings…” Johnny loops some of her hair around his fingers. 

Maybe he has a type. 

“You’re sayin’ offing Smasher might be cathartic for the both of you,” V says. 

“Yeah,” Johnny says, looking at her hair rather than her face, “also… I’d like to talk to her. No funny business, honest, just…”

V softens when she can see him struggling. Okay, so, she might feel a little jealous of Rogue; she’d gotten the chance to know Johnny when he was actually alive and Johnny hadn’t just been shoved in her head, he’d _chosen_ to be around her. She’d been gorgeous, too. Hell, she still is to be honest.

But she believes him, that he needs to do this with her, and she believes him that it’s not about anything romantic. The ‘not serious’ part she is still pretty dubious about.

“She seemed pretty upset about you cheating on her to say you weren’t serious,” she points out. Johnny sighs and lights up a useless cigarette of his own when it appears in his fingers.

“I was a bastard to her, which I’m sure doesn’t shock you by now. Women in my life were always more serious about me than I was about them,” Johnny shakes his head, “s’why _you’re_ fucking me up so much.”

“Just that special?” She snorts a bit.

“Actually, yeah,” Johnny says, not joking at all; V’s cheeks feel warm. 

Men have said that kind of thing to her before, but it never felt like someone meant that shit as much as Johnny does.

“Anyway… like to have the opportunity to leave things better between us before I maybe, you know, kick the bucket again.”

V nods and picks his hand up - she can feel his guilt twisting up his stomach, just a vague reflection of it in her own.

“Whatever happens I want her to know I gave a shit about her - want to show it myself. Would mean me taking over again though and that’s totally your call... That good with you?” He seems to struggle meeting her eye. Probably embarrassed by talking like this.

Surrendering control of her body is still a concept she doesn’t like. Doesn’t matter how much she trusts him now, it’s _her_ body; there’s a big difference between kissing and fucking and having him actually controlling her limbs. Feels even more intimate for him to be touching things with her hands than to have his dick inside her. 

She’s willing to do it, though, weird as it is, because she’s willing to make herself a little uncomfortable for something like this. 

“Yeah,” she says, “s’good with me, Johnny.” 

“Thanks.”

Then it's quiet again for a minute, both struggling with this kind of conversation still. 

“Johnny...” She can’t have him sitting there feeling stupid for asking.   
  
“Yeah?”

“Don’t have to be embarrassed for asking me for these things, you know? If there’s anything I’ve got through my dumb skull this year it’s that friends are important… Would probably still be lyin’ in this bed feeling sorry for myself if it weren’t for Misty and Panam and Vik and Judy. All those guys... I get it, I do. Wouldn’t wanna leave it on bad terms with any of them either.” 

Johnny’s shoulders relax some and he meets her eye then.

“Might be a few more people on my outreach tour, then, if you’re good with it.” 

“More than good with it,” she squeezes his hand, “I run around doing shit for people I don’t even like every day. Can do a few favours for the guy renting a room in my head.”

“And making you cum three times in one sesh.”

“That too.”

** ** ** 

RELIC MALFUNCTION DETECTED 

Johnny looks down at V’s feminine forearm and sees the ghost of his own silver one flicker in and out on top of it, he touches his mouth and feels smooth skin and plush lips instead of his coarse facial hair. He knows what V’s body feels like to touch, he knows what it’s like to look out of her eyes, but Jesus, this is so fucking weird. 

At least last time he’d been too panicked about how sick she was to really think about taking over. Now, he can take his time if he wants to - pill has fully kicked in and he has total freedom. He’s pretty sure she’s totally unconscious in there, no idea what he’s even doing. 

Fucking hates the absence of her voice, he realises. They talk to each other so constantly that his ears feel like they’re ringing from the silence in his head. He steps into the Afterlife, very aware of the people glancing over when he does, looking him up and down. Least there’s no stopping him knocking someone the fuck out if they try anything with ‘her.’

Johnny glances over at the Rogue’s booth and he can just about see her crossed leg behind that huge bodyguard. He doesn’t want to go over and it’s not the goon putting him off.

Is he nervous? Why’s he nervous? The feeling is unfamiliar but he doesn’t like it. 

His eye is drawn to the bar and the bottles lined up there, including his favourite tequila, calling to him up on that lit up shelf - practically has a glowing aura around it. 

Shit, V wouldn’t begrudge him one drink, would she? Wouldn’t be mad at him for indulging in being actually alive for just a little bit?

“V, hey,” Claire greets him with a smile. Well, now he _has_ to go to the bar; doesn’t want to be rude.

“Hey,” he sits down on a stool. The music is loud and it sounds so much louder than when he’s just in her head. When he’s out of her body, he feels real, but it’s not until now he’s realising what a pale version of reality that is.

The feeling of the sticky counter under his forearms, the smell of liquor in the air and the thud of the bass from the speakers - all of it feels so good he could fucking cry.

“You do something with your hair?” Claire sets down the glass she’s cleaning. “You look different.”

Johnny tries to figure out what V would say.

“Still a 10 though, right?” He raises an eyebrow and Claire laughs a little and shakes her head.

“What’s your poison?” 

Johnny doesn’t even have to think, his order comes to his tongue as easy as his own name, “Tequila Old Fashioned. Top it up with beer. And sprinkle in some chilli.”

“Silverhand special? Been a while since anyone ordered that,” Claire gets to making the drink. 

“Not a surprise. Clientele here are a bunch of pussies,” his mouth is practically watering when she puts the drink up on the counter. 

He downs it and _fuck_ , it’s good, it’s so good. That familiar burn hits the back of his throat for the first time in years and the taste of it is so much better than his imagination could conjure up. 

“Another,” Johnny puts the finished glass down on the counter; now he wants some food, everything he’s craved this whole time - salt, sweet, crunchy, soft. It’s all so much better on her tongue and better than the reflection from V’s mouth.

Claire obliges and he downs that one too. It’s not enough, he should just take the fucking bottle like he used to. 

“Gimme another,” Claire pours another, giving him a little look.

“Doing alright, V? This isn’t a sorrow drowning, is it?”

“Nah,” Johnny downs the glass and starts to feel the alcohol, just a little; he never flushed when he got drunk but she does, gets all pink in the cheeks, “just feelin’ good tonight.”

Johnny almost asks her for another, his instinct is to just keep going and going. Can probably figure out where Smasher is without Rogue, take a more fun route, get drunk as fuck and party and joyride like he used to. Couple of lines of coke wouldn’t hurt. Shit, there’s probably hella drugs out there that weren’t even invented back when he was around. 

That sounds good, sounds _so_ good. 

He glances over at Rogue’s booth again. 

Fuck, _no_. He’s not about to lie to V about why he came here or use her body to give himself a good time. Might be fun in the moment, but he’ll feel like a piece of shit tomorrow and he’ll have punched that trust she’s given him right in the face.

Also, he has to admit to himself, he’s being a pussy. Idea of talking to Rogue is freaking him out and he’s trying to avoid it. 

“Another?” Claire holds up the bottle. Johnny gives it a look, mentally kisses it goodbye, and shakes his head.

“Got business with Rogue,” he takes a wad of eddies from his back pocket - _V’s_ back pocket, his ass has never been that juicy - and drops them on the counter, “thanks, gorgeous.”

Oops. Fuck. She probably wouldn’t say that. Claire’s brow twitches a little bit but she obviously chalks it up to the alcohol and brushes it off.

Johnny clears his throat and saunters over to her bodyguard. Gotta turn on the charm if he’s gonna get Rogue to believe any of this craziness.

He goes to breeze past the truck of a guy but he puts a hand on his shoulder and nudges him back, “Got an appointment?”

“This a doctor’s office?” Johnny pushes the guy aside hard enough that he almost stumbles. 

Rogue doesn’t look happy, but she barely ever did. 

She’s aged for sure, but she’s still beautiful. Puts an odd feeling in his stomach, being face to face with his old friend and lover who’d always wanted more from him than he could give. Was always easier just to ignore, back then, rather than talk.

“You hit your head or something?” She asks, cold as ice.

Johnny smiles wide, ignoring the angry glare he’s getting from her goon, “What can I say? I missed you.”

Rogue looks somewhere between confused and pissed. This is going to take some explaining.

Johnny takes V’s cigarettes from the jacket pocket and lights one up (the real nicotine hit could give him a full boner at this point) before he flops down in the seat beside her and puts his foot up on the table. 

“So,” he says, “got catchin’ up to do.”

** ** ** 

V wakes up feeling groggy in her bed. She had expected to be fully dressed, that he’d just lie down and take the pill, but she has her comfy bed clothes on and she even feels like she’s had a shower. There’s no hint of a hangover, either, she thought for sure he’d at least get a little drunk.

“See? Took good care of you, didn’t I?” Johnny’s sitting at the foot of the bed with his back against the wall.

“Apparently so,” V sits up, groggy, running her fingers through her hair, “even brushed my hair, did you?”

“Just copied what you do,” Johnny looks her over, “couldn’t figure out what cream you put where though so didn’t bother.”

“That’s alright,” V says and stretches out her arms; feels like she’s been in a deeper kind of sleep than ever before, “you didn’t even do one naughty thing while you had the chance?”

“Had a respectable amount of tequilas and polished off a plate of wings. Other than that I was a good boy.”

“And Rogue?”

“Success,” Johnny says, “tell you the full story after some coffee, but it went as well as it could when you tell someone their dead friend is living in the head of some criminal you barely know.”

V yawns wide, “She’s on board to find Smasher then?”

“Yeah,” Johnny says, “tomorrow.”

Shit, she hadn’t expected that. 

“Oh, that was fast.”

“Like I said, coffee first.” 

V nods, then crawls over to him. She kisses him gently. 

“Thanks for looking after me, Johnny. Know it must’ve been tempting to have a good time while you could.”

“Not pretending I didn’t think about it.”

“I would’ve forgiven it,” she shrugs a shoulder.   
  
“Yeah?”

“Yeah… I mean, guess I’ve never seen Johnny Silverhand go _really_ wild. Would depend on how hungover you got me."

“Can get pretty wild yourself,” Johnny points out. 

“Hm,” V kisses him again, “still, thank you for it. You have been a good boy.”

Johnny makes a little sound in his throat, “Say that again.”

She smirks and bites back the urge to laugh, “You’re a good boy.”

He hums a kiss into her mouth and starts to grab her when she gets up. He falls to his side, reaching off the bed though she dodges his hand. 

“Coffee,” she reminds him, “you’ve got a story to tell me.”

  
  


** ** ** 

  
  


V can’t really get a read on Rogue.

The woman leads V out of the Afterlife up the stairs. She has a lead on Smasher, Jeremiah Grayson, and she knows where he’s going to be, some ship down at the docks. It is insanely impressive how fast she works - she must know everyone in the city. 

Not really talking much, though, she just went over the plan and that was that. 

“How much convincing did it take you to believe Johnny last night?” She has to ask, following Rogue up the stairs.

“Less than you might think,” Rogue says, “thought you’d lost it at first, but it wasn’t hard to see Johnny in you. Way he moves, way he talks, that smirk. No faking it.”

“And how am I looking now?” She asks when they’re outside in the light of day. Rogue considers her for a second, glancing her up and down.

“Much prettier than him,” she says, amusement around her eyes and V laughs a little, relaxing. 

“Fuck off,” Johnny appears leaning against the side of Rogue’s car, arms crossed.

V smirks at him and watches Rogue open the trunk, “Gotcha a little something.”

“A gift?” V’s eyebrow quirks and she looks in the trunk.

A leather Samurai jacket, the exact same style she knows she’s seen pictures of Johnny wearing before with the red oni grinning on the back, “Oh, shit this real?” 

“A replica, made to order, thought it might suit you,” Rogue is smiling just a little, watching V pick it up and examine it. It is a gorgeous jacket, high quality, impeccable sewing. It seems like it’s half a joke on Rogue’s part, but it’s still a hell of a present either way.

“Smells like real leather,” V slips it on her shoulders, very aware of Johnny watching her closely. 

“That’s how you know it’s not the original. His always smelled like cigarettes and spilled tequila.”

V chuckles and puts her hands on her hips, posing a little. Johnny is standing in front of her then, beside Rogue while they both look her over.

“Verdict?” She raises her eyebrow.

“Not bad,” Rogue says.

“Hot,” Johnny lowers his sunglasses to look at her properly, “be better without the shirt but we can talk about that later.”

V fights off rolling her eyes at him and gets in the car, Rogue driving. 

“You understand the plan, right? Don’t know how given towards sneaking you are,” Rogue checks with her, pulling onto the road.

“Always my preference to do things quiet, actually,” V says, “less liable to get your head blown off that way.”

“Oh, that must drive Johnny crazy,” Rogue smiles a little. 

“Yeah,” V says, knowing he’s in there listening, “ _‘what’re you doin’ V? Just fuckin’ shoot them._ ’” She imitates. 

“Okay, that impression is too good, you’re freaking me out,” Rogue says. 

They’re quiet for most of the way, but V still feels curious about this whole situation.

“Can I ask you somethin’ kinda personal?” V asks.

“You can ask. Might not answer.”

“Fair,” V concedes, “just - I know you and Johnny had a thing and all but seemed like he was a pretty big asshole to you. I was kinda sceptical that you’d agree to this.”

Rogue sighs, watching the road ahead with an inscrutable expression.

“Those days seem like a million years ago now...” she says, “and you’re right about the asshole part - I half hated him back then - but there’s no changing the shit we did together, the good and the bad. You end up bonded to people, even if you don’t really mean to.”

V nods. Maybe she understands that better than anybody.

“You probably understand that better than anybody,” Rogue says, as if she can hear her thoughts too. 

“Shit, maybe you should’ve ended up in _her_ head,” Johnny’s voice chimes and V glances in the backseat for him but he’s not there.

“Yeah, I get it,” V nods.

“Smasher’s a bastard in any case. Taking him down isn’t just for Johnny’s benefit.”

They drive through the city to the docks. Rogue’s car is gorgeous, sleek, purrs like a kitten. Exactly the kind of car V dreamed about before she came to Night City. Actually, Rogue’s whole life is pretty much what she had been chasing - Fixer of Fixers, sitting comfortably at the head and just raking in the eddies. Whole thing is less attractive to her now, but Rogue is no less impressive now she knows her a little better. Got the air of a woman who knows exactly what she’s doing, total control. 

“So, what has Johnny said about me? Know you two talk all the time,” Rogue glances over at her. 

“Just that you’re the best,” V says, because it’s true, Johnny had said that, “and that he’s got some regrets about how he was with you.”

Rogue looks at her with a little flicker of surprise on her face, “He does?”

“He not mention that?” V frowns.

“No. Told me the story of how he’s still alive then got right onto Smasher. Why? He tell you we had a heart to heart?”

“Didn’t tell me that I just assumed-”

“There wasn’t time,” Johnny says firmly, sounding a little annoyed, “it didn’t come up.”

“Just assumed he would,” V finishes her sentence.

Rogue scoffs, “Honey, not even fifty years is enough for Johnny Silverhand to bring himself to apologise for a thing, trust me.”

V almost says something back. But the words ‘he’s changed’ sound too cliche to come out of her mouth. He has though, he’s changed even since she’s met him and he has apologised to her when he’s needed to.

Well, maybe he doesn’t use the word ‘sorry’ much but he does it in his own way. Again, explaining that sounds too cliche to mention. 

They’re getting close to the docks. It’s just starting to get a little darker, enough to give them some cover to get to that cargo ship that Grayson is on. 

“You mentioned before about Johnny and I having a thing,” Rogue says out of nowhere, “you two have a thing too, don’t you?” It comes out like a fact, not a suggestion, as if she just _knows_.

V looks at Rogue, trying to discern how she feels about that. 

“Yeah. He tell you?” She asks. 

“No, could just tell. Way you talk about him,” Rogue shrugs, “way you _look_ when you talk about him.” 

V snorts, covering the fact that she feels caught, “Tell me I don’t look like a lovesick little girl.”

“Not much,” Rogue looks back out of the front window for a place they can park up inconspicuously, “just don’t let yourself get rolled, okay? Johnny knows how to turn it on. People don’t change _that_ much,” they pull in on the road a little further down from the docks.

V feels defensive and her kneejerk urge is to argue, to tell Rogue not to patronise her, or act like V doesn’t know Johnny at all, and _fuck you anyway_ , she has no idea the kind of conversations they’ve had.

But that’s unfair, because Rogue doesn’t know what V and Johnny have talked about, she’s speaking from experience and V really does feel like she’s trying to help her not get hurt. 

Johnny is uncharacteristically quiet in there.

They find the right dock and jump the fence of one of the entrances. The ship is well guarded so they try to keep to high ground, climbing cargo containers and slipping between them when they have to. Rogue has a good eye for spotting cameras, too, and she has tech capable of shutting them off from a distance. She just oozes impressive, V is kind of in awe of her. 

The gangway of the ship is in sight, but there’s a guard right there at the foot of the ramp. V and Rogue duck behind a cement blockade out of his sight. 

“What do you wanna do about him?” Rogue whispers.

V considers the situation. Guns will attract everyone around, messing with his chrome and having him call for help is bad, too. They can’t even get behind the fucker either, it’s just the walkway and water.

Approaching from the front without getting clipped is the only option. 

“Alright, got an idea. Don’t judge me though,” V whispers back, “wait here.”

She moves carefully from behind the barrier and gets behind one of the cargo containers instead. There, she makes it so the jacket is hanging off one shoulder and tugs down the front of her vest, letting one of the straps hang off too. 

“Christ V, you gonna seduce him? This isn’t porn,” Johnny finally speaks up, appearing next to her.

“Only kinda,” V shrugs and takes a breath. Hopefully the guy isn’t too fucking quick on the trigger. 

When she steps out from behind the container, she makes herself wobble, putting one foot in front of the other with the misguided purpose of a drunk person trying to look sober. She walks right into the guard’s line of sight, trying to look as uneven and unthreatening as possible.

“H-hey, are you Jerry?” She slurs and walks over to him. 

“The fuck? How the hell did you get here?” The guy’s hand hovers over the gun on his hip but he doesn’t grab for it. As she wanted, he looks mostly confused by her presence.

V makes a puzzled face and looks past him, “I - I dunno - Jeremiah said to meet me by the water and I saw water and just kept walking and walking.” 

She takes a couple of steps to the guard and tries to put on a sweet, big-eyed expression. 

“Should I not be here?”

He looks her up and down wearily, “This is a restricted area. You said you’re looking for Jeremiah? Grayson?”

V snaps, “That’s it, that’s the guy - m- my Jerry.”

“Jesus. Inviting strippers to the fucking ship now,” the mumbles to himself and rolls his eyes. V takes another step closer - he’s in reaching distance now, “you can’t be here.”

“Are you sure?” V wets her lips to make him look down at them.

“What’s your name? I’ll see if Grayson-” The side of V’s hand collides with his windpipe and his words catch in his throat. He clutches at his neck with wide, shocked eyes, unable to breathe for a second, and V takes her chance to get behind him and kick him to his knees.

Rogue comes out from where she was hiding and watches V wrap her arm around his neck and knock him out, then lower his limp body to the ground. 

“Nicely done,” Rogue raises her eyebrow, “no judgement on technique, might have pulled it off myself in my younger days.”

“Please, I’d kill to look like you at any age, never mind in my fuckin’ 80s,” V takes the guy’s gun on the offchance he wakes up before they’re gone, then gets to picking up his shoulders while Rogue gets his feet before someone sees them.

“Aren’t you sweet,” Rogue says, voice like butter.

“Just honest,” V winks.

“Can you stop flirting? Got a job to do.” Johnny says and watches them sling the guy’s body between two of the containers, shadowy and out of sight. 

V ignores him, fighting off a smirk. 

The ship is gratefully under guarded. Just takes the two of them quietly zeroing a couple of guards before Rogue spots Grayson on the upper deck, elbows on the railing and back to them, totally oblivious that every one of his guys is out.

V has her pistol to the back of his head soon enough, he doesn’t hear her until she’s close enough to breathe on his neck.

“Nice and easy, there,” she says and Grayson puts his hands up. 

A bluff, because the next second he does reach for his gun; Rogue kneecaps him just as he turns and raises it to V, and he falls to the ground with a scream, clutching at his bleeding leg.

“No fuckin’ way,” Johnny appears, crouching beside him.

“I know,” V says to him in her head, “fuckin’ idiot.”

“No, not that. This is my gun. Malorian 3516, got my initials on the fuckin’ butt,” he points at where it’s laying beside Grayson’s hand, “grab it.”

V picks the thing up and tests the weight of it in her hand. It feels vaguely familiar, even though she’s never actually held one of these guns before, fits in her hand like it was made for it. 

Jesus, it’s a gorgeous little killing machine, she turns it over with her fingers and feels the heavy weight of it.

His initials _are_ engraved in the bottom, too, just like he’d said. This gun is ancient, someone must’ve been taking very good care of it.

“Grayson,” Rogue says bitterly. 

“Oh, my Rogue, you and me not playing for the same team anymore? Not that it would matter if I was. Seems your speciality, slipping shivs in the backs of allies,” Grayson looks up at her with dark eyes. 

“Realise I’ve pretty much got a canon pointing at you right now, don’t you?” V looks down at him. “Or I could just break your limbs one at a time ‘til you start talkin’.”

“Happy to talk,” Grayson smiles nastily, “could talk all day about how you’ve allied yourself with a professional fucking traitor-”

Rogue punches him across the face, hard enough so the guy spits blood. 

“Where’s Smasher? All’s I’m here for,” V snaps impatiently. 

“With the Arasaka’s, obviously,” Grayson spits out one of his teeth.

“No shit, when’s he due back here?” V shakes the gun.

“Never. Faithful old Adam’s just been named head of security there. Never coming back to this rathole, I just stayed behind to tie off loose ends - ugh -” 

Well, shit. 

“Shit!” Rogue kicks a nearby box and sends it flying. 

“Could say that again, you two will never jump that high, Smasher’s out of your reach. But don’t feel bad, he’ll find you, likes to resolve shit like this in person,” he blinks up at V, “why you so interested in Smasher anyway?”

“Interested in Silverhand,” V says, “s’why I’m curious how you got his gun. This thing must be worth a mint.”

“What, you a fan too?”

V glances at Johnny and thinks, “Jesus Christ, this guy is just a fan?”

“Even assholes can have decent taste,” Johnny leans on the container.

“Smasher give it to you?” Rogue asks, a dark look in her eye.

“Uh-huh. Reward for a special job well done,” he smiles through bloody teeth. A shot of anger goes up V’s neck - Smasher’s been keeping hold of Johnny’s stuff all this time, handing his property around like special prizes.

Fuck, what about his body? What did they even do with it?

“What’d Smasher do with his body?” She has to ask. 

“That into him, huh? Plan to exhume that scop?” He looks up at V with no idea how angry he’s making her, “Or you just wanna hear how he died? Soaked in his own piss, neurons scorched by Soulkiller?”

The image hits her hard, makes her stomach twist, and V punches him hard enough across the face that her knuckles hurt and he falls to the side, clutching his nose. She forgets Johnny and Rogue are even there when she closes her fist in the front of his shirt to drag him upright again.

“Where’s he buried, fucker?” She spits and presses the barrel of the gun against his cheek. 

He coughs and winces against the pain, nose broken.

“Badlands, near the oil fields… 101 northbound - _fuck_ \- then head for the landfill,” V releases him harshly and straightens herself again, ignoring the eyes on her. She doesn’t give a shit anymore. That Smasher has been holding on to Johnny’s things like trophies and that this guy has the gall to insult Johnny to her face is making her see red.

“Dig deep enough, might even find his shit-smeared silver arm,” he smiles bitterly again.

V’s heard enough. She cocks the pistol and aims it at the bastard’s head.

“No, no wait! Silverhand, you’re into him, right? Got somethin’ else of his,” he looks decidedly less amused now he knows she isn’t fucking around.

“What?” V snaps.

“Cargo container back on the dock, orange, got his prize wheels in it. Me and Smasher are the only ones with the code,” he tries to sit himself up straighter but that cap in the knee is keeping him down.

“Alright, tell me it,” V says, lowering the gun.

“Not gonna kill me?” 

“No,” she rolls her eyes, “have my word.” 

“4073. Now you gotta-” Grayson doesn’t get to finish that sentence or any other, V fires off a shot with Johnny’s pistol right into his head and the guy falls limp.

“Fuck, V,” even Johnny sounds taken aback. V doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt about it. Bastard.

“Good thinking,” Rogue comes to stand at her side, “would’ve squealed as soon as we left.”

“Don’t need Smasher getting a head start,” V puts the gun in her waistband. 

“Like that matters,” Rogue shakes her head, “this whole thing was a waste of time. No new leads, nowhere to go from here.”

V glances at where Johnny was, but he’s gone. She has no idea if that’s intentional or not. Rogue seems upset, though, and V isn’t altogether sure what to do about that.

“This wasn’t just about revenge for Johnny, you know? Was about doing this with you,” V says. 

“What, he thinks this would cheer me up?” Rogue scoffs. “He still doesn’t get it, does he? Smasher is the tip of the fucking iceberg. The guy is a piece of shit but he’s just a tool for the Arasaka’s, anybody could’ve been the one to take Johnny out.” 

Rogue is definitely upset. She keeps her back to V, but she can hear it in her voice.

“If Johnny thinks revenge on Smasher is going to make either of us feel better then he’s a gonk,” she shakes her head, “almost as much as I was for thinking that as well.” 

“Rogue…” V puts a gentle hand on her shoulder and Rogue turns her head towards her, “I - Johnny just thought maybe you needed this.”

“That’s because he’s not been around for the last fifty years,” she says, “but I have. So I’ve had time to learn that you can’t just shoot at all your problems to make them go away.”

V doesn’t know what to say to that, but it doesn’t matter, Rogue shakes her head and moves away from her.

“I gotta go… Can you get yourself a ride back?”

“Yeah,” V says, dry throated. Rogue just leaves her with a nod, stepping over Grayson’s legs on her way.

“Leave her, V,” Johnny reappears as Rogue steps off the ship, “she likes time alone when she’s upset.”

“I get that,” V says, but her mind is reeling. What Rogue said has stuck with her. This idea that finishing Smasher would really mean something, that it would hold some kind of catharsis had been something V hadn’t even thought to question for a second. She wants the guy dead almost as much as Johnny does. 

But, of course, shooting at her problems has yet to really work for V, either, on any kind of emotional level anyway.

“Want to go out to these oil fields first, see what it’s like out there,” Johnny’s voice is low and there’s a dark look in his eye. V’s stomach turns uncomfortably - oil fields by the landfill don’t feel like the kind of resting place she’d want to see for herself.

“Johnny-”

“Have to see it, V, with my own eyes,” he’s firm in it, and she’s not going to argue.

“Alright,” she agrees, then remembers what Grayson had said, “first things first though, huh?”

He hadn’t lied about the code for the cargo container, the code opens the thing up, revealing the car as if in slow motion. Honestly, V’s mouth almost waters. A silver Porsche 911, classic but totally pristine, complete with Samurai vanity plates. It’s beautiful even inside the shadowy container.

“This the one?” V runs her hand up the hood and over the driver’s door.

“Yes, it fuckin’ is,” Johnny lets out a breath, looking the thing over, too, “beautiful as the day I met her.”

“Johnny Silverhand, man of the people, drove a custom Porsche?” She raises her eyebrow.

“Not about to compromise on wheels, V,” he says, “get in and hack. Only person I want drivin’ this from now on is you… fuckers collecting my stuff like goddamn groupies.”

V gets into the driver’s seat and does as asked. 

By the time they’re on the road, she’s pretty well convinced she never wants to drive another car again. The thing actually purrs, and it drives like a dream, silky on the roads like no other set of wheels she’s ever been in. 

Johnny is less talkative on their way to the place Grayson described. V can’t blame him - must be weird to know you’re heading for your own grave. She just stays quiet and lets him alone with his thoughts as they drive out of the city and into the badlands.

By the time they’re at the site there’s a chill in the air. Night has fully drawn in.

The place is exactly what she expected, and kind of worse. The oil fields are vast, some pumps in operation and some not. This part is just debris, fallen down old structures and rusted corrugated metal. It doesn’t look like a graveyard for a human being, it looks like a trash heap.

A flare stack burning is the only source of light for it, casting the whole area in an eerie orange glow. 

They move through the area, Johnny walking ahead and looking around, occasionally climbing over piles of debris. A sadness settles into V’s chest. Johnny didn’t deserve this, to have just been left in a nothing place.

She thinks about mentioning that she got left in the landfill, but this isn’t a mood that can be lightened. She just lets him look around and take it in.

“This is how it goes then,” Johnny stops eventually and sits down on a broken down sheet of metal, “nothing here at all.”

His eyes are downcast, face dark. 

V lets out a breath and sits down across from him, looking around the place lit by flame.

“What were you expecting?” She asks, because she can’t think of anything else to say.

“I - I dunno, a marker? Something, anything,” he isn't looking at her. She has never heard him sound so goddamn sad before. Makes her chest hurt.

Hurts more than she doesn’t know what to say to make him feel any better. It’s shitty that he was dumped here, with no one who loved him even knowing it, there’s no getting around that. It’s shitty and it’s painful. 

All she can think to do is take her knife from her boot and carve his initials into the metal beside her. He watches her, a small, tired smile on his lips.

“Better?” She asks, trying to force a smile too.“A bit…” Johnny nods, then seems to turn something else over in his head, “what would you write on my real headstone?”

“God, Johnny,” she shakes her head, feeling a lump in her throat out of nowhere. Logically, she knows he’s already technically dead, but to think of it like that, him being actually, fully gone, headstone and all… _Fuck_. 

“Just try,” Johnny says, “‘here lies Johnny Silverhand…” He trails off for her to finish. 

She looks at him and wills tears not to form in her eyes. What is she supposed to say? How is she supposed to sum up everything he is to her and everything he is to everyone else too? 

“Saved my life a lot,” she says eventually, and he breathes a little laugh. There’s more, there’s so much more, but she just can’t bring herself to say it.

“Sounds good to me,” Johnny says and stands up. He looks over at the city skyline and his shoulders move as he lets out a long breath, “there’s people out there right now who’ve missed me, all this time.”

“Course there are,” V says, “only just realised that?”

“Guess so,” Johnny keeps his eyes to the city, “guess I’m also just starting to butt up against the fact that I’ve used and let down every last one of them, at one time or another. Was doing it then, to Rogue, didn’t even realise it.”

V keeps quiet, knowing he needs to get this out.

“Was making Smasher about her, about the both of us, when it was just about me. I wanted revenge and I wanted her to be along with me for it. Everything’s always been about what the fuck I wanted,” he shakes his head, “and Rogue doesn’t give a fuck about Smasher, not really, she gives a fuck about _me_. She’s fucking sad because _I_ made her sad, not that borg.” 

Johnny turns to look at her then, “You’re waiting for my point, aren’t you?”  
  
“Didn’t think there was one. Just wanted to let you talk,” V tells him honestly.

“Well, think there _is_ a point… A few points, actually. One, is you have to do everything you can not to end up like this,” he gestures around them, “if there’s anyone that deserves to have her friends bringing flowers and cryin’ over a nice headstone when she’s gone it’s you. Second, is _fuck_ Smasher.”

“What?” That’s the last thing V expected to hear.

“Rogue was right, before, about me not getting it. Clipping that guy isn’t going to make me or her feel any better, it’s not gonna do anything at all but feel good for a few seconds before it means nothing,” Johnny says.

“But I promised you I would-”

“Fuck that.” Johnny crouches down in front of her and puts his hands on her arms. “Not putting people I care about in danger just to chase my own revenge anymore, V. Least of all you.”

V listens to him. She’s not used to this, chasing down a target to vehemently and then just stopping, letting it go. It feels somehow wrong, like a shirt that doesn’t fit right. They’re just going to let him go? Not even try to take him out?

“You’re thinkin’ like I was fifty years ago,” Johnny says, obviously hearing some of her thought process, “but killing him isn’t going to change anything that matters... It isn’t going to make me any more alive. You know that.”

The tears stinging the back of her eyes break then, no stopping them. She hadn’t even anticipated it, suddenly, she’s just crying.

“Oh, shit, V, didn’t mean to-” He moves to sit beside her. 

“No, no it’s fine it’s fine,” she swipes them away quickly, embarrassed, “don’t know where the fuck that came from, I just… This night’s been weird.”  
  
“It has,” Johnny puts his arm around her shoulder and tugs her against his side, “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” V shakes her head and wishes the tears would stop flowing like this, “was all for going after Smasher, too.”

“Get why I’ve changed my mind though, right?”

“Yeah, I get it,” V nods and swipes at her cheeks again. She hates crying in front of anyone. She hates crying period.

Johnny puts a gentle hand on her chin and gets her to turn her face to him. She doesn’t want him to see her crying that full-on, but she lets him. 

“Why so upset, V?” He asks her softly. She swallows and looks down at her lap. 

“Just… This whole fuckin’ thing, this place… Makes me so goddamn angry the way he was handing out your stuff after just dumping your body in a place like this,” she sniffs, “and I don’t know what to do with that anger now, so I guess it’s coming out like this.”

Johnny nods, listening to her. She feels like she should stop talking, because her emotions are at a 10 and she can feel it pouring out like she never usually lets it. 

“That and what you just said. About killing Smasher not making you more alive,” she wets her lips and tastes salt, “‘cause I thought I knew that, seems so obvious, but _shit_ , it did feel like avenging your death would somehow bring you back. Like I’d be correcting the universe or something.”

V buries her face in her hands, hearing herself, “Jesus I sound fuckin’ crazy.”

“Sound sane as hell, V,” Johnny tugs her wrists so she moves her hands and he can look at her; he doesn’t look amused, or like he’s not taking her seriously. He looks like he gets her and he _sees_ her, “was how I felt, too.”

V nods and swallows the lump in her throat, “So that’s why I’m crying, ‘cause all I want is to have you alive. Think I want you alive more than myself, to be honest.” 

She almost wishes she could snatch those words back as soon as they’re out of her mouth. They feel too much, they feel like a confession that’s too big to tell. 

V cares about Johnny more than she does herself and he might be the first person she’s ever really, truly felt that way about. 

“Val…” There’s the slightest wobble in Johnny’s voice when he smooths the tears off her cheeks with his thumbs, “don’t know what it means to hear you say that.” 

Her heart swells at the use of her name and the tenderness he says it with. 

“Got an idea of what it means. You said it yourself the other day, promised it’d be your life for mine if it comes to it,” she looks him in the eye, then, calming down some.

“That stands,” Johnny says firmly. 

“I’m not arguing it, just telling you how it felt to hear that,” V blinks away the last of her tears, “spent most of my life on my own, even in the clan… Then I get this guy slotted in my head who’s with me 24/7 and who’d die to keep me alive.” 

“Any day of the week,” he says and smooths some hair behind her ear, “do anything for ya, Val. Know that, right?” 

V nods, feeling as if she could cry again, and kisses him softly. Johnny’s deep breath through his nose fans over her cheek and she closes her eyes and enjoys the feeling of him. Alive as he can be and right there with her still. 

“I’m your girl?” She asks him quietly, feeling a lot younger than she has in a long time.

“You’re my girl,” he tells her and kisses her forehead. 

It feels different to hear him say it like that, in this context. Feels like someone’s put a warm blanket around her shoulders and laid her somewhere safe. 

She isn’t ready for all this to end, yet, not even close. But if it _is_ going to end, it’s not going to be on this note, sitting in an oil field however many feet above Johnny’s bones, crushed by regret. 

A wave of resolve washes over her, and V pulls away from him and stands up, taking a bracing breath and clapping her hands together. 

V doesn’t sit around and cry about shit, she resolves it, she’s the _person you fucking call_ to resolve shit. 

“V…” Johnny looks puzzled.

“You’re right. Shooting at your problems doesn’t make them go away and chasing down old enemies isn’t going to make your friends feel any better. Talking has a tendency to alleviate shittiness, though,” V starts to walk back towards the car at a brisk pace, “said the other day I wouldn’t want to leave on a bad note with my friends and I’m not letting you leave things with Rogue this way.”

“So what’s the plan exactly?” Johnny follows her away from this depressing place. 

“Gonna take a pill and give you another shot to say what you wanna say. No missions, no revenge quests, you’re just gonna talk and however she feels about that is how she feels about it.”

“Got that look on your face that says there’s no changing your mind,” Johnny catches her wrist and gets her to turn around, smiling a little, looking far less sombre than he did before.

“There is no changing my mind, ‘cause I’m right,” V smiles too, “this is the shit that matters, Johnny, about time we both figured that out.” 

Johnny nods and she knows he understands exactly what she’s saying. They’re both looking down the barrel of permadeath - killing and destruction are less attractive prospects than they used to be.

If they’ve only got a couple months left, weeks even, V wants to at least try to leave something good behind and repairing things between Rogue and Johnny might be a good start. 

They get in the Porsche and set off. Neither looks back at the oil field in the rearview. 

“So, after Rogue, who’s next on the list?” V asks.   
  
“Kerry, of course,” Johnny puts his foot up on the dash.   
  
“Kerry _Eurodyne_?” Admittedly, V flashes back to that extremely intense teenage crush and all the time she’d spent watching Samurai videos with her eyes right on him. 

“Actually, no, forget it, because you just fuckin’ _swooned_.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, we’re starting to leave some canon in the rearview. 
> 
> I promise the next chapter is not going to be so heavy and probably won’t be as ridiculously long (but who knows, honestly, I get so carried away).
> 
> As always, thank you lovely commenters and kudosers, lights of my life. <3


	8. Bad Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short lil one as a treat.

Aside from the metric shit-tonne of reasons that Johnny would hate to take over V’s body fully and have her gone like the Relic wants, at the forefront of his mind when he’s walking around as her is that he can never imagine it fitting right. It’s not just an anatomy thing or that she’s so much smaller than him, _being_ her just feels wrong down to his bones… Her bones. Whatever. Is that a kink Arasaka was gonna work out? The fucked upped-ness of puppeteering someone else’s body?

Still, there’s a reason for it. He’s going to talk to Rogue finally, like V suggested, and he’s not going to be a fucking coward about it. 

They’re meeting at her place, some swanky penthouse in the middle of the city. Johnny takes the elevator up and wills himself not to say something about her living amongst corpos that's liable to get him punched. 

Rogue opens the door for him and gives him a quick once over before leading him inside. Always been hard to read, Rogue, but he knows when he senses tension in her.

“Nice digs,” Johnny looks around the big open apartment, all sleek dark granite and marble, exactly her taste as he remembers it but definitely refined by having dough in her pocket. Big floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the city - the place glows in that low light she always liked. 

“Yeah,” Rogue leads him to the living room and he sits down on the leather couch while she goes to her bar, “tequila?”

“Whiskey,” Johnny just wants to taste something different while he has the chance. 

When Rogue hands him a big glassful and sits down on the couch, she keeps a seat between them and crosses her arms expectantly. 

“Assuming you’re here about Smasher,” she says. Straight to business, hard to find a way in. 

Johnny finishes about half the glass in two swallows. Still feels almost as good as a blowjob, drinking real liquor, he could happily bathe in the stuff right now. 

“Actually, no, had a change of heart about that,” he turns to face her and rests his knee up on the couch so it feels less stiflingly formal. 

Rogue looks at him for a second with a twitch in her brow, then she actually snorts - half a laugh, half a scoff, “Literally never heard you say those words. Never changed your mind about a thing.”

That sounds about right. Never had to change his mind about a thing because he never had anybody else’s opinion, or life, to really give a shit about. Well, had plenty of people he _should’ve_ given a shit about but never really managed to back then.

“Don’t get me wrong, I would still love to cut the guy’s head off and toss it off ‘Saka Tower, just realised I don’t wanna do that enough to risk you and V and whoever the fuck else,” he tries to explain. 

Rogue glances down into her own drink and turns the ice cubes with the tip of her finger, “V bring you to Jesus, huh? Just that special?”

She’s joking, but there’s a genuine edge of bitterness there. Or, not bitterness, regret maybe, disappointment. Johnny’s never been good at figuring this shit out. 

“Living life in V’s noggin has changed some stuff about me, sure,” he sips his drink, “can’t give all the credit to her, though. Think experiencing death definitely rearranged some shit in my _own_ fucked up skull.” 

“And that’s why you’re here? ‘Cause you saw the light?”

“Didn’t see the light, Rogue, saw fuckin’ blackness and nothing. And right before that, I had just about enough time to realise blackness and nothing was exactly what I deserved,” retribution for the shit he had done.

Rogue sets down her drink and lets out a long breath, “About what I deserve then.”

“Bullshit,” Johnny dismisses.

“Not bullshit, Johnny. I was right there with you, wasn’t I? Helped you with everything from petty crime to terrorism.”

“Just 'cause they call it terrorism doesn't mean you have t-”

Rogue barks a harsh laugh then and gets up, covering her forehead with her hand and walking away from him to the window, “God, Johnny, don’t give me any freedom fighter bullshit, okay? Call it what it is.”

Johnny stands up too, feeling that defensive flare in his gut, “Was only supposed to take out the tower and its database, Militech fuckin’ lied to us about the blast radius and you know that.”

“Working with one corp to take out another, what did we expect?” She shakes her head, arms crossed and back to him. “It is what is. Just because I blame Militech the most doesn’t mean I absolve myself from my part and neither should you.”

“I don’t,” Johnny says firmly, “should’ve never trusted Militech but the tower still needed taking the fuck down. I’d see that building in flames again any day of the week.” 

He’s not going to stand here and lie. There’s a lot he feels regret about, including the ways things went down the day they blew the tower. But if he woke up tomorrow in his own body on the morning of it and got the chance to do it the way they had thought it would go? He would do it, no question. 

“Not changed _that_ much then,” Rogue says quietly. 

Could mean that in either a good or bad way, Johnny supposes. Both, probably, knowing how it used to go between him and Rogue. 

He approaches her and leans on the window beside her so he can look at her face, as if he’s going to find some solution there. 

“What is this about, Johnny?” She asks, finally meeting his eye. “Going after Smasher, then not? Coming here because you just _had_ to talk to me?”

“Wasn’t to take an accounting of all our shitty deeds,” he says, then gets himself together to actually get the words he came here to say to come out of his mouth, “already died once, okay? Might not be long before I shuffle off this digital mortal coil. Didn’t want to do that again with you still thinking I don’t give a shit about you.”

She looks down at the ground, arms crossed still, but he knows she’s listening.

“I did, and I do, Rogue, you were the fuckin’ best.”

Rogue sighs and shakes her head, “Took you death and fifty years to figure it out?”  
  
“Knew it then, just too much of a dickhead to express it,” he says and gets the urge to reach over and touch her shoulder, something comforting, maybe. Seems too much - he doesn’t get the impression she’d thank him for it. 

“Think the Rogue you knew would’ve liked to hear that,” she says eventually. 

There’s a melancholy in the air between them that Johnny wishes he could somehow fix, but he knows he can’t. This has been on his mind for days, but she’s had fifty years to think about it, about him, to reconcile how she’d seen him and how he really was.

“Rogue I knew is right here,” Johnny gestures a hand to her, smiling a little. She breathes a sad laugh and shakes her head.

“No, unfortunately not,” she says, “was why I came with you yesterday, tried to fool myself into believing I am the same person I was then, but I’m just not. I still might have the stomach for action but… Don’t think I’ve got the stomach for you anymore.”

Jesus. Ouch.

Johnny swallows and brushes off the initial sting - can’t exactly fucking blame her, can he?

“No need to go easy Rogue, tell me what you really think,” he says but she doesn’t laugh that time. 

“Still care about you, in a way, no killing that. Just realised that hearing you say you give a shit about me doesn’t mean as much as it might’ve when I was younger,” she says, “don’t need you to tell me I’m the best, either. I know.”

That makes him smile a little. Conversation isn’t going exactly how he might have wanted, but she’s being honest with him - that means something.

“True. Little patronising of me, huh?” He raises an eyebrow and finally gets a small smile and an eye roll out of her.

“Look who’s learning how to listen,” she says with faux-praise in her tone, “might mistake you for a real person, one day.”

“Bitch,” he says and she actually laughs then.

“That’s more like it, asshole,” she says. 

They stand in quiet for a moment; Rogue rests her back against the window and regards Johnny again. She looks just right standing there with the city behind her that she’s climbed so high. Johnny feels as proud of her as he does fucking stupid for thinking she needed any kind of validation from him anymore. 

He also realises, with a weird kind of certainty, that this is the last time they’re going to see each other. Doesn’t know how he knows it, he's just suddenly sure that this is an ending. 

As if on cue, he sees static in his eyes and hears a buzzing in his ears that tells him the pill will be wearing off soon. 

“Got one more thing to say that you might not buy,” Johnny pinches the bridge of his nose and wills the headache away, “sorry for being such a piece of shit to you. Lot of things made me a fuckin’ idiot back then and that’s at the top.”

Rogue nods, taking it in, “Not got room in my life for a grudge against you, Johnny. Forgave you a long time ago. Tried to keep the good parts of you in my head and leave the rest.”  
  
Johnny nods. It’s good to hear her say that, but it’s not shit she should’ve had to work through on her own. 

“Appreciate the sorry, though,” Rogue nudges his arm with her elbow, “seriously.”

He swallows deep and picks up her hand gently, just needing something other than words to tell her that he gets it and that he hopes she gets him too. Johnny squeezes her palm and gets the malfunction notice again. Time to go. 

Rogue squeezes his hand back and lets out a sigh, “About time you let V have her body back.”

“Uh-huh,” Johnny says, “guess I’ll see you around.”

The look on Rogue’s face lets him know she doesn’t think that’s true, either, but ‘goodbye’ just feels too heavy.

“Yep, see you around,” her hand slips from his and he makes to leave her apartment, scooping up the unfinished glass of whiskey on the way and hearing her scoff. 

When he’s at the end of the hallway by the elevator doors and presses the button, she says his name and he turns to face her again. Rogue stands at the other end of the hallway with her arms crossed, looking almost shy.

“I’ve got a son,” she says. That takes him by surprise. He just stands there dumbly not knowing what to say and wondering why she’s telling him that now, “he’s 19.”

Maybe she just wants him to _know_ before he leaves; she wants to let him into a part of her life and to let him know she’s been getting along without him. Not walking around on her own, pining for the old days.

“Hottest, most badass mom in Night City,” he raises the glass he just stole and the elevator doors open behind him so he gets in, “have to introduce him to Uncle Johnny one day, I’ll teach him about chicks.”

Rogue rolls her eyes and raises her hand in half a wave. Johnny does the same and the doors slide shut.

Another malfunction, just mild, doesn’t knock him to the ground. He lets out a long breath and finds the pill in his pocket, looks at the thing in his flickering silver palm for just a second before knocking it back with the rest of that nice whiskey. 

It takes effect straight away and he does double over then when the pain of it hits that time. He sits down on the floor of the elevator so she doesn’t fall and hit her head and only has a few more seconds before he slips into unconsciousness.

When Johnny wakes up, they’re in the Porsche and she’s driving home. She looks across at him when he appears in the passenger seat.

“So?” She asks expectantly. “My nose isn’t broken so I’m guessin’ you didn’t piss her off too much.”

“No,” Johnny shakes his head and leans back in the seat, going over the thing in his head, “can you smoke? I’m jonesing.”

V obliges him and lights up, “S’okay if you wanna keep it between the two of you, I get it.”

“Not sure it went exactly how you thought,” Johnny says; the nicotine hit relaxes him a little, at least, “no grand reconciliation but… I dunno, maybe somethin’ better.”

“What?” She asks.

“Honesty,” Johnny shrugs, “was straight up with her, she was straight up with me.” 

He can feel V looking at him and trying to figure out his mood. She’ll be lucky, he isn’t entirely sure how he feels himself. A little sad, maybe, just from thinking about all that old shit, but ultimately relieved that he'd finally gotten the balls to at least apologize to her, as little or as much as that might mean.

“I make things way worse between the two of you by suggesting you talk?” She chews her bottom lip.

Johnny shakes his head, “Nah, left it on good terms, much as we can. Just put a lot of shit on my mind.”

V nods in understanding and leaves it at that. He’s glad for it, feels talked out at this point and would rather just leave it alone. 

“Still like to see Kerry, but let’s leave it for the weekend. Don’t wanna take the pseudoendotrizine twice in one day,” he says.

“You sure? I think I can handle it,” V chucks the cigarette butt out of the window.

“‘Think’ doesn’t cut it, Val. Let’s not take chances,” Johnny says.

“Whatever you say. Might go up to see the Aldecaldo’s tonight, then. Panam’s been buggin’ me to hang out and it’s been a while,” she says.

The Aldecaldo’s. Saul. His immediate asshole reaction is to ask if that’s why she’s going there, but he’s not trying not to immediately be an asshole all the time, isn’t he? 

** ** ** 

Hanging out with Panam is fun but the girl is always getting in some shit, and as a girl who is _also_ always in some shit, V finds it difficult to turn her down when she brings an idea to her. 

That’s how heading up to the camp for a couple of drinks has ended up with her tailing some Raffen Shiv down a barren stretch of land in pursuit of a vehicle they’d stolen from the Aldecaldo’s. It’s a truck they can do without and Saul had told Panam to let it go. Thing is, the truck used to belong to Scorpion so the chances of Panam letting it go are approximately 0.

“Thought we were learning lessons about revenge this week,” Johnny chimes in the back.

“That was you. _I’m_ still taken to bashing the head of fuckers that think they can rob a clan and get away with it,” she keeps it in her head; Panam isn’t paying her much mind anyway, watching the dim brake lights of the car ahead. 

“Not your clan though, remember?” 

V glances at him in the rearview because he’s got that voice on like he’s teasing. Not a mystery, she knows what he’s getting at, that maybe she feels a little _too_ comfortable with the Aldecaldo’s. 

“Couple of Raffen Shiv aren’t comparable to Adam Smasher, although I know you love your exaggerations,” she hits the gas some when the car ahead gets harder to see, “gonna fuck off and let me concentrate, sweetheart?”

“Yes, and fuck you too, cherry pie,” Johnny flips her off and leaves and she fights off the snort of a laugh that bubbles up.

“Didn’t know they had a hideout all the way out here,” Panam squints at the dark all around them. They’re way out in the desert, the city is miles away. 

“Good place for one,” V says, “still see the car?”

“Just about.”

They drive a little further down the dirt road until the car takes a right off it and into the rough terrain. Good thing they’re in Panam’s truck, the Porsche would not be able to handle this and Johnny would fucking lose it if she fucked up the wheels. 

The car ahead has slowed down and V gets that familiar prickle up her neck that says something’s wrong.

“Got a skeevy feelin’, Panam,” she tells her, slowing down too. 

“Same here. You armed?” 

“Course,” V’s bad feeling is confirmed when the car stops completely only a few yards ahead and the occupants get out. Two men and one woman, looking rough and tough like Raffen Shiv do. They face the car and the woman holds up her arms with a grin. Fuck, they’ve been made.

“Well, shit,” Panam crosses her arms as V slows to a stop too. 

“What’s our move? This is your gig,” V touches the gun on her hip and eyes the group. 

“Getting that truck back, that’s our move,” Panam gets out of the car, no more discussion, “come on.”

V nods and gets out too. Honestly, she’s kind of spoiling for a fight, it’s been a while and three Raffen Shiv will be like swatting gnats. The two of them walk to three waiting figures who are standing there with arms crossed and smirks on their faces. They stop a good five feet away, far enough to not get grabbed but close enough to blast their heads off pretty easily. The headlights from their cars cast them all in shadow. 

The whole situation is so familiar it feels like she could be 18 again, standing beside a couple of Bakker’s in the desert and settling some shit with another clan. The stakes of her life have upped so much that this feels like a walk on the beach. Fuck, V realises she’s almost smiling and tries to fix that. 

“Can we help you ladies?” The guy with the red mohawk and matching glowing eye mods asks. 

“Can help us by handin’ over the keys to the truck,” V says simply. They look between each other and laugh. She feigns a confused frown and looks over at Panam, “I make a joke?” 

“I didn’t hear one,” Panam shrugs a shoulder, playing along, “how about this: hand over the truck, one you stole from my clan, and things can stay nice and easy between us.” 

Red mohawk guy takes a couple of steps forward, closing the gap between them, sand and stones crunching under his big boots.

“Don’t sound easy, choom, sounds like you think you’re threatenin’ us,” he looks Panam up and down and spits on the dirt between them, “and you don’t wanna do that.” 

It’s V’s turn to laugh a little. An actual laugh. Always funny when dudes like this think they can intimidate her. 

“We do wanna threaten you actually,” V smirks up at him, “here goes - give us the fuckin’ truck, or I will shoot you in the head right now.”

He smirks back, “You shoot me then my peeps’ll shoot you and your friend.” 

V looks around his shoulder at the two of them and makes an unimpressed grimace, “They don’t look fast enough for that. Guarantee my friend will pop off at least one of them and I’ll get the second before you finish gargling.”

He laughs again and puts his hands on his hips, “That fast, are ya?”

“I’m Jesse James. Fastest gun in the fuckin’ west,” she says, enjoying this, “so? What do you say?” 

“I say try me, cunt.” 

It goes about how V said it would. She pops the guy in the head and Panam gets the woman in the next second. The last one is only just pulling his gun when V gets him in the shin and stops Panam from finishing him off with a firm hand on her wrist.

“What?” Panam snaps, visibly running on adrenaline.

“Just trust me,” V says over the sound of the guy yelling in pain from the shot. She holsters her gun on her hip, feeling a little ache in her shoulder from the kickback for the first time in a while - it’s Johnny’s Malorian and it truly is like a mini cannon. 

The truck keys are in the mohawk guy’s pocket and she tosses them to Panam before they both go to the remaining Raffen. 

“Don’t know why this is a lesson you have to keep learnin’,” V puts some pressure on his wound with her boot and he cries out again, “don’t fuck with the Aldecaldo’s. If you can make it out of the desert without a rattlesnake getting you I’d spread the word.” 

“Okay! Okay! Fuck…” The guy clutches at his leg and V takes her foot away and opens the passenger door of the truck. 

“Got lucky this time, bastard,” Panam points at him before rounding the car and jumping in the driver’s seat. 

She sets off at a fair speed - the guy could easily call some backup to fuck them up on the way back.

“Was good thinking, that at the end,” Panam says, “I forget you used to be a nomad yourself, sometimes.”

“Gotta have a reputation for bein’ a tough fucker as well as actually bein’ one, need people alive to spread that word,” she lights a cigarette and rolls down the window, “fuck, that was fun.” 

“Would tell you that you’ve got a fucked up idea of fun if I didn’t agree,” Panam smiles. 

“Not our fault they wouldn’t have a civilised con-”

RELIC MALFUNCTION DETECTED

Nausea and pain, familiar friends, hit like a bus and her vision goes hazy. She’d felt fine a second ago. She sees the disturbance in her vision and hears the echoes of half-remembered sound from Johnny’s former life.

V coughs harshly and she knows there’s blood on her palm before she even looks. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

“V? Are you - _shit_ is that blood? Are you coughing up blood now?” 

“I’m fine, Panam, I-” 

She’s not fine, another stab of pain in the side of her skull, and she’s out. 

** ** ** 

Hours later, when she wakes up around dawn, it takes Panam a lot of convincing to let her drive herself back to the city. It freaked her out watching V pass out again - says she looked sicker than last time, asked her if she’s been telling Vik about coughing up blood. She hasn’t. V tells her that guiltily and anticipates the punch in the arm she gets for it. 

Panam is still scolding her when she walks her to the Porsche that a couple of Aldecaldo kids are admiring. 

“Shoo,” V waves them away and they scatter quickly. 

“You told me about Silverhand but you didn’t tell me he was fucking up your health this much,” Panam casts her a look that she tries to make look threatening, but V can see the worry there, “I mean, this is the second time I’ve seen you pass out. How much is it happening? And you’re not even telling your doc? Are you crazy? You even taking your med-”

“Panam,” V touches her shoulder, “I’m fine, look,” she puts on a wide smile, “could do cartwheels if I wanted.”

“You’re not funny,” Panam crosses her arms, “coughing up blood is _bad_ , V.”

“I know that… But I’m feeling way better now, promise. And I really don’t pass out that often, just unlucky it’s happened twice with you.” 

“Really?” Panam looks at her sceptically. 

Shit, is V lying right now? She isn’t even sure. Kind of feels like lying, to not mention that she’s actually not fine and her death is pretty imminent. Feels worse to think of saying that to Panam though and have to watch the look on her face when she does. 

“Yes,” V says it firmly with all the conviction she can muster, “soon as I’m on my deathbed I’ll drop you a call, promise.” 

“You better,” Panam squeezes her in a one-armed hug before shoving her towards the car, making her stumble, “if you don’t I’ll bring you back and take you out myself.” 

V laughs, just about getting her balance, believing that if anyone could find a way it would be Panam, “Got it.”

The quiet drive back to the city is nice and she’s glad Johnny seems to be sleeping, or unconscious or whatever. Good to talk but good to enjoy the silence too, sometimes. 

Johnny’s got her thinking, about relationships and death and all this heavy stuff. Thinking too much, maybe. For her, anyway, she’s had her introspective phases in the past but most of her life is just about doing, _being_ , without really examining what it all means or where it’s going. 

Right now she just wants to be. Just drive her fancy new car and be glad she took maybe one of her last opportunities to have fun doing bad things with a good friend. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little preview of the next chapter since it's almost done anyway:
> 
> _Not only is she in Kerry Eurodyne’s mansion, she’s in his fucking bedroom. That bitch Sandy from the clan who stole her Samurai poster would shit if she could see her now. God, she wishes she could call her._
> 
> _“Sure you don’t wanna lie down for a nap? Big ol' bed…” Kerry’s gravelly voice drips with flirtation - adult V knows he’s joking, but she says a prayer for teenage V anyway. Somewhere inside she's having a heart attack._
> 
> _“He’s kidding,” Johnny appears on the bed next to him with his arms crossed and an impatient expression, "and you're fuckin' taken."_
> 
> _“I know, Johnny," she smiles dopily, "but it’s Kerry Eurodyne.” ___


End file.
